Less than three months after Trump’s latest tweet slamming OPEC, in which he warned the petroleum cartel that it must “REDUCE PRICING NOW!”, Trump was at it again and on Thursday morning, with Brent hitting $80 per barrel and higher gasoline prices creating another headache for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, the president lashed out at OPEC, saying that the US protects the countries of the Middle East, and warning these nations that “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.”
Trump’s latest threat, however, was summarily ignored on Sunday when OPEC leader Saudi Arabia and its biggest non-OPEC oil-producer ally, Russia, ruled out additional increase in crude output, defying Trump’s calls for action to cool the market.
“I do not influence prices,” said the Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih during a press conference in Algiers for a meeting that ended with no formal recommendation for any additional supply boost, Reuters reports.
In recent weeks, oil prices have moved back to 4 year highs, a rally that according to analysts has been mostly due to a perceived decline in oil exports from Iran due to fresh U.S. sanctions, stemming from Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran Nuclear deal. As a result, as much as 1.5 million barrels of output are in danger of being taken off the market.
And while Falih said Saudi Arabia had spare capacity to increase oil output, he said that no such move was needed at the moment. Instead, Falih blamed refiners for not converting enough product: “My information is that the markets are adequately supplied. I don’t know of any refiner in the world who is looking for oil and is not able to get it” he said.
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