Trump asked Riyadh not to lower oil prices to dangerous levels
US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — US President Donald Trump supported the plans of Saudi Arabia to oust Russia from oil markets by increasing fuel production, Politico reports citing informed sources.
According to a former senior official in the administration, Trump endorsed Riyadh’s plans, but at the same time he urged that oil prices not fall too far to protect US fuel producers.
However, as Politico’s interlocutor noted, the fall in prices two weeks after Trump’s conversation with Salman turned out to be so strong that the White House was taken by surprise.
“No one thought that it (oil. – approx. ed.) Would fall so low,” the source said.
The head of the White House expressed his position on March 9 in a telephone conversation with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that officials from the US Department of Energy are urging the Trump administration to form an alliance with Saudi Arabia to regulate oil prices.
It is assumed that such a decision will avoid serious collapses in oil prices, and may also weaken the partnership of Saudi Arabia with Russia.
Trump himself said last week that Russia and Saudi Arabia are fighting for market share and this has dropped oil prices to their lowest levels in decades.
According to him, the United States will intervene at the “right time”, but for now they are trying to find a “middle ground” between the benefits of low prices and the protection of its oil industry.
A spokesman for the Russian president Dmitry Peskov , commenting on the words of the American leader, noted that the Kremlin understands the reason for his statements – many companies suffer from low prices, and American producers of shale oil are in a dire situation.
Disruption of the OPEC transaction
At the beginning of March, the OPEC + countries failed to come to an agreement either to change the parameters of the agreement to reduce oil production, or to extend it.
Riyadh insisted on an additional reduction in production, but this did not suit Moscow, which proposed to maintain the current conditions.
As a result, from April 1, participants in the OPEC + transaction will not have any obligations to each other. After that, the Saudis announced that they would increase production, lower prices and offer large volumes of discounts to European customers.
This led to the collapse of oil quotes in world markets. Since the beginning of the year, prices have fallen more than twice.
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The article is written and prepared by our foreign editors from different countries around the world – material edited and published by Ordo News staff in our US newsroom press.
