Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries

The dollar's gyrations remain a key source of inspiration for traders with the fundamental focus continuing to switch between falling US and rising OPEC production, according to Saxo Bank's Ole Hanson.

The nervousness and negative price action seen this week was triggered by a change in focus from falling US production towards the rising supply from others, especially within OPEC. Having seen calendar 2017 almost hit $50 last week the realisation that further upside may be hard to achieve may has helped trigger increased demand for protection.

Authored by Pepe Escobar, originally posted Op-Ed at SputnikNews.com,

US President Barack Obama landed in Saudi Arabia for a GCC petrodollar summit and to proverbially “reassure Gulf allies” amidst the oiliest of storms.

The Doha summit this past weekend that was supposed to enshrine a cut in oil production by OPEC, in tandem with Russia – it was practically a done deal – ended up literally in the dust.

Submitted by Rakesh Upadhyay via OilPrice.com,

Saudi Arabia single-handedly scuttled the Doha meeting, knowing all along that Iran would not participate, with a valid reason. The Russians and others agreed to proceed without Iran, planning to include them at a later date. So if everything was known beforehand, why did the Saudi’s pour cold water on the aspirations of the remaining members, risking its alienation from Russia and the OPEC community?

by David Haggith from The Great Recession Blog

As predicted relentlessly here, the scuttled meeting in Doha to limit oil production broke up with no agreement at all. The meeting foundered like a tanker snagged in the dessert sands because of the singular obvious factor that should have sunken all hope weeks ago but did not: Saudi Arabia said, “No deal without Iran.”

Doha disaster predictable yet not the disaster that was predicted

Following yesterday's OPEC "production freeze" meeting in Doha which ended in total failure, where in a seemingly last minute change of heart Saudi Arabia and specifically its deputy crown prince bin Salman revised the terms of the agreement demanding Iran participate in the freeze after all knowing well it won't, oil crashed and with it so did the strategy of jawboning for the past 2 months had been exposed for what it was: a desperate attempt to keep oil prices stable and "crush shorts" while global demand slowly picked up.