Tag: Global Crude Oil Production

With oil prices having staged a recovery during the first quarter of 2019, primarily due to the withholding of oil supplies from Saudi Arabia, President Trump has once again entered the oil market as a threat. Not since OPEC’s founding in 1960 has an American president been as vocal or involved as Trump.

Trump’s intervention in “Round 1,” summarized below, shocked the market, causing a massive price collapse. However, with close scrutiny of the president’s views, both before taking office and over the past year, the market should not have been so surprised.

Saudi Arabia is in a delicate position. On the one hand, it needs oil prices in the $80s to support it's country’s budget, even if lifting costs are $10 or less. It also knows that a “high price” is not the best price longer-term, due to cutbacks in demand and the increasing availability of substitutes, such as U.S. shale.

But possibly most importantly, it depends on the U.S. for its security. And looking forward, it wants U.S. investment to help diversify its economy as the oil age wanes.

Simply put, it cannot afford to ignore this U.S. president, whose first international trip was to KSA. There is an important political and economic link to the U.S. that it did not have even one president ago (Obama). And its arch-nemesis, Iran, at the same time is being severely harassed by President Trump. Continue reading "Round 2: Trump Vs. OPEC" →

OPEC’s market monitoring committee met on September 23rd to assess conditions just about six weeks before new U.S. Iran sanctions go into effect, targeting Iran’s oil sector. Buyers and sellers are in the process of finalizing their loading programs for November, and so this assessment is of particular importance as to the question of whether oil supplies will be adequate once those sanctions go into effect.

The market focused on the lack of public discussion of President Trump’s demand on Twitter last Thursday for OPEC to increase supplies to get prices down:

"We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices! We will remember. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!"

However, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih was quoted as saying, "Our plan is to respond to demand. If demand [for Saudi crude] is 10.9 million b/d you can certainly take it to the bank that we will meet it. But the demand is 10.5 million b/d or 10.6 million b/d. I think October will be more than this."

Source: AFP

In a more recent news story, it was reported that Saudi Arabia and its allies discussed adding 500,000 b/d to supply. Saudi Aramco plans to add 550,000 b/d of new capacity in the Khurais and Manifa oilfields in the fourth quarter of 2018. Continue reading "Moment of Truth Approaching on Iran Sanctions" →