Saudis Unwilling To Upset Putin As Biden Begs For More Crude

The United States is calling on Saudi Arabia to increase oil production

• The world's largest crude oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, continues to keep close ties with Russia while the top oil consumer, the United States, pleads with major producers-including the Kingdom-to boost supply to the market and help ease consumers' pain at the pump.
• While the U.S. and its Western allies are sanctioning Moscow and banning oil imports from Russia, President Joe Biden is also turning to Saudi Arabia as he asks it to pump more oil as Americans pay on average $5 a gallon for gasoline

Sergey Lavrov and Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud

• Lavrov visited Riyadh and met with his Saudi counterpart.
• The two ministers said that the OPEC+ alliance is solid, with the level of cooperation within it strong
• During that meeting, the Saudi minister said that Saudi-Russian relations were as warm as the weather.

The recent OPEC+ decision to accelerate the production increase and roll back all cuts in August, a month earlier than initially planned, was pushed by Saudi Arabia amid US pressure.

• But the Kingdom had to check with Russia first before proposing the redistribution of the September increase in July and August, sources with knowledge of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy told Reuters.

OPEC+ is not close to reaching its target production, nor has Saudi Arabia much spare capacity left to boost production further

• Per the OPEC+ deal, the Saudi target is at 11.004 million bpd for August
• The Kingdom has rarely reached this level, and not for a sustained period of time.
• It's not certain that the Saudis have the ability to pump 11 million Bpd or more on a sustainable basis.

 

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Saudis-Unwilling-To-Upset-Putin-As-Biden-Begs-For-More-Crude.html