U.S. - Saudi relations are the worst they've been since the 1973 - '74 oil embargo. That resulted in oil jumping 300% from $3.00 per barrel to $12.00 per barrel.
Brent $98.13 up $3.46 (3.65%)
WTI $91.66 up $3.49 (3.96%)
From Sputnik (who I believe are still sanctioned in Europe and Maybe the U.S.), October 27:
On Tuesday, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman warned the Biden administration that its decision to further chip away at the US’s emergency oil reserve by releasing an additional 15 million barrels of crude could result in “pain” “in the months to come.” Washington moved to open the taps after OPEC+ agreed to cut production.Saudi Arabia’s back-to-back warnings this week against using energy as a weapon and against a hurried rush to transition away from traditional fossil fuels to green energy is based on Riyadh’s desire to preserve stability in energy markets, and the global economy as a whole, political analyst Dr. Ahmed al-Ibrahim says.“It is clear” that Washington's decision to release another 15 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve onto the market “will be painful for the emergency stock,” the Riyadh-based specialist in Saudi-US relations told Sputnik.The observer pointed out that that draining the SPR now may result in shortages in the event of an actual energy emergency.According to the latest Department of Energy figures, America’s emergency sweet and sour oil reserve currently has about 401.7 million barrels in its inventory, dropping by double-digit rates every month since March, when the Biden administration announced that it would be tapping the stockpile to try to get gasoline prices under control. With the US economy consuming about 20 million barrels of oil per day, the SPR currently has enough crude to last just 20 days if production and imports were somehow halted due to an emergency. The SPR’s stocks have already fallen to their lowest levels since the mid-1980s.The additional release comes after OPEC+ agreed in early October to slash oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November in response to uncertainty in global energy markets. US officials have criticized the decision and vowed to retaliate.Al-Ibrahim characterized that the administration’s move to release more crude as a step akin to a declaration of an “oil war” by the White House, and warned that it may lead to a repeat of the unprecedented situation which took place in April 2020, when disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Russia on output led crude prices to briefly dip into historically unprecedented negative territory, leading to a crash of the oil market and to devastating consequences for some crude producers, including the United States.“I think this step is uncalculated by the Biden administration. The only thing right now in the Biden administration is how to win the midterm election. So they are politicizing oil in the internal politics of the United States. And this is something very different from what the OPEC+ is doing by actually stabilizing prices of energy around the world and not actually politicizing oil,” the observer stressed.Commenting on the Saudi energy minister’s warning that the draining of the US energy stocks may lead to “painful” consequences, al-Ibrahim explained that this “pain” could impact the oil market in a number of ways.“At the end of the day, consumers will either need to pay $300 per barrel or chaos in the market is going to take place,” he warned.Suggesting that a $90-per-barrel price tag for oil may very well become the ‘new normal’ thanks to inflation, rising insurance and shipping costs, etc., al-Ibrahim argued that this “may be the right price that we are going to see for oil for many decades from Now.""Again, America is selling their LNG [for] five times [the cost] to Germany and France and nobody is talking about it. The US is not discussing it, because it’s a revenue stream for this administration and they are looking for their own benefit only, and they are not looking at how OPEC+ members can benefit from oil supply,” the observer said....
....MUCH MORE
