One day after Saudi Arabia raised the prospect that Wednesday's OPEC summit in Vienna may conclude without a deal (which also was spun as optimistic as the market would still revert to "equilibrium", however it was unclear at what price), OPEC members tried on Monday to rescue a deal to limit oil output as tensions grew among the producer group and non-OPEC member Russia.
President-elect Donald Trump has announced plans to create “complete American energy independence” and ban Saudi Arabian oil from the U.S. market – and the Saudis have begun to panic. Imagine making the world’s largest oil exporter sweat it out. That’s exactly what Donald Trump is doing. The president-elect has said repeatedly that the U.S. needs to ban all oil imports from Saudi Arabia. During his campaign Trump vowed to secure U.S.
Back in mid-April, when Iran was desperate to start exporting the millions of barrels it was pumping each day out of the ground, it found it has an unexpected problem: not only did it not have enough spare tankers, but few if any shipping companies were willing to move the cargo.
There were two key reasons for this.
Submitted by Rakesh Upadhyay via OilPrice.com,
Traditional rivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran, continue to fight to prove their supremacy in OPEC. Neither gives up an opportunity to hurt the other, whenever and wherever they can, and oil seems to be their favourite playground.
With Saudi Arabia scuttling any chances of a production freeze in Doha in April, Iran has followed suit by thwarting attempts by Saudi Arabia to introduce a production ceiling on OPEC production in Thursday’s meeting held in Vienna.