Iran

"Low oil price is a function of excessive supply+true demand realization" - Reggie Middleton

Failure to proceed with crude output freeze plan seen as a "serious blow" to oil-market sentiment by Energy Aspects; Barclays expects mounting tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran to boost volatility. Separately, Kuwait oil workers strike viewed as price-supportive.  Here, courtesy of Bloomberg, is a summary of what analysts have said so far on meeting’s outcome as well as comments on Kuwait:

Barclays analysts including Miswin Mahesh

Following last night's leaked draft Doha document, which envisions a non-binding, "gentleman-like" oil freeze agreement, that caps production at January levels until October, with zero enforcement or oversight, moments ago the formal Doha talks started:

• OIL PRODUCERS START FORMAL TALKS ON OUTPUT FREEZE IN DOHA

However, even before the start, things did not look good, when Saudi Arabia delayed the start of the meeting in what seemed to be a redrafting to account for the inclusion of Iran as part of the freeze, something which Iran has clearly said it won't do.

With the world's attention about to focus on Qatar where in just a few hours the Doha OPEC "freeze" meeting is supposed to start (without the presence of Iran which has made it clear it won't freeze production but "supports the decision for other OPEC and non-OPEC countries to freeze crude oil production" so everyone except Iran), moments ago Tass presented a glimpse of what will be announced.

Back in January, when the market was watching in shocked silence as oil prices were crashing to decade lows and as concerns emerged that Saudi Arabia may need to commence selling its vast, if unquantified, USD reserves, we wrote a post titled "Attention Finally Turns To Saudi Arabia's "Secret" US Treasury Holdings" where we noted something very surprising: whereas we do know that Saudi Arabia is the owner of the world's third largest USD reserves...