OPEC+ Makes Surprise Oil Production Cut Announcement, The Global Cleaving Continues.  Despite the fact the Western Alliance have created the policy that will deliver pain to their citizens, not a single government leader will look at this move as a bad thing.  The pain will not be felt by the elites, it will only hit the citizenry.  Lowered oil production outputs that drive up gasoline prices and fuel inflationary drivers, expedite the Build Back Better narrative and objective.  However, that said, in context to this announcement, a pain that will hit the Western economies of the alliance represented in yellow, the last 18 months of moves by Mexico makes President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador look remarkably prescient.  The new strategic relationships and trade partnerships between China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and beyond, take on an added geopolitical dimension.

Oil prices soar after OPEC+ announces production cuts.  Oil prices soared nearly 6% on Monday after Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers said they will cut production by 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year.  The cuts in oil output by the so-called OPEC+ countries immediately pushed crude costs higher and were expected to boost gas prices in the U.S. and other countries.  Higher oil prices also will complicate the efforts by central banks to rein in inflation.  "This will create both political waves across Europe and even higher general inflation in the USA, leading to renewed pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep hiking rates aggressively," Clifford Bennett, chief economist at ACY Securities, said in a report.  Higher oil prices would also help Russia, a member of OPEC+, by boosting its coffers as the country wages war on Ukraine and force Americans and others to pay even more at the pump amid worldwide inflation.

Saudi Arabia Condemns Biden Insults, Rejects Halting Oil Production Slash Until After Midterms.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia issued an outraged statement Thursday condemning the White House, without naming any official in particular, for claiming that Riyadh supported an OPEC+ decision to cut oil production by two million barrels a day because it had decided to side with Russia in the ongoing Ukraine war.  The extensive statement also mentioned rumors, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, that the leftist administration of President Joe Biden had attempted to convince Saudi officials to delay any oil production cut until after the midterm elections.  While the Foreign Affairs Ministry neither confirmed nor denied that American diplomats had made the request, it rejected the idea as potentially having "negative economic consequences."

Biden's Anti-Drilling Policies Have Cut Oil Supplies as Much as OPEC+ Decision.  President Joe Biden's anti-drilling policies have cut oil supplies as much as the decision Wednesday by OPEC+ to slash two million barrels of oil production, an analysis by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity shows.  If former President Donald Trump's energy policies would have been continued, American oil production would be four to five times greater than the amount of oil Biden has released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  According to the study, Biden's war on American energy will cost the United States nearly $100 billion in output every year, which translates to between two and three million barrels of oil a day, the same amount of production OPEC+ cut Wednesday.

America needs to drill, baby, drill, but Biden refuses.  Prices at the pump had already started edging up before OPEC+ decided Wednesday to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, ignoring the White House's frantic appeals.  "It's clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today's announcement," flamed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.  Wrong again, Karine:  The Saudis and the rest are simply serving their own interests by limiting supply to keep prices high; they're gettin' while the gettin' is good.  Too bad your boss, President Joe Biden, refuses to serve America's interests by unleashing US energy producers.  Instead, Biden is releasing another 10 million barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was already at a decades-long low from his prior actions.  And never mind that this will only make up for five days of the OPEC+ cuts:  The prez needs to do something basically symbolic — because his ideology stands in the way of doing anything meaningful.

OPEC+ Energy Ministers Agree to 2 Million Barrel Cut to Oil Production.  A panel of energy ministers of the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries on Wednesday agreed to recommend a historically large cut in output, a stinging rebuke to the Biden administration that is likely to mean higher prices at gas pumps in the United States and Europe.  The alliance, which is led by Saudi Arabia and includes Russia, is meeting in Vienna to negotiate the largest production cut since the pandemic first struck.  The energy ministers who comprise the cartel's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee recommended a cut of two million barrels per day in the group's overall production.  A final decision will be voted on later on Wednesday.

OPEC+ plans "historic" cut in oil production.  So much for bragging about declining gas prices that had actually stopped declining.  Joe Biden will likely face a new round of gas-price shocks soon, thanks to what OPEC+ hints will be a "historic" cut in daily production.  The apparent goal?  To get prices back above $100 a barrel, and perhaps to push back against Western sanctions on Russia.

Oil prices jump to 7-year highs after OPEC+ agrees to stick to gradual production hikes.  Oil prices spiked after OPEC+ on Monday [10/4/2021] agreed to keep its existing schedule of gradual hikes in oil production, adding to inflationary pressures engulfing global markets.  West Texas Intermediate crude, the US oil benchmark, rose as much as 3% to $78.13 per barrel, its highest since 2014.  Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, jumped as much as 3% to $81.77 per barrel.  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as Russia and other non-member allies — also known as OPEC+ — ignored growing calls for opening the taps at a faster rate to bring down prices after oil rocketed to more than 50% this year.  Instead, the group "reconfirmed the production adjustment plan" to raise monthly overall production by 400,000 barrels per day in November, according to a statement released after the discussions.

OPEC tells a weak, incompetent US president to drop dead.  Last week, we were wondering:  What could be more pathetic than the sight of President Joe Biden begging OPEC to increase oil production, just to make up for the U.S. and Canadian oil production that he had gone out of his way to impede from the moment he took office?  Believe it or not, that was not a hypothetical question.  There is, in fact, something even more pathetic than Biden's desperate request for a foreign oil cartel to spare him motorists' anger and a political backlash.  That would be the oil producers' response to Biden, which roughly translates to "drop dead."  At the very moment Biden's administration was being convulsed by its humiliating strategic failure in Afghanistan, the international oil cartel and the adjacent producers known as "OPEC-plus" added insult to injury with their defiant answer.  As Reuters reported it, the major oil producers (including Russia) let word slip that they "believe oil markets do not need more oil than they already plan to release in the coming months."

OPEC+ sees no need to meet U.S. call for more supply, sources say.  OPEC and its allies, including Russia, believe oil markets do not need more oil than they plan to release in the coming months, despite U.S. pressure to add supplies to check an oil price rise, four sources told Reuters.  The price of international benchmark Brent crude has risen 35% this year towards $70 a barrel, driven by economic recovery from the pandemic and supply restraint by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners in the alliance known as OPEC+.

How Venezuela Struck It Poor.  Venezuela was considered rich in the early 1960s:  It produced more than 10 percent of the world's crude and had a per capita GDP many times bigger than that of its neighbors Brazil and Colombia — and not far behind that of the United States.  At the time, Venezuela was eager to diversify beyond just oil and avoid the so-called resource curse, a common phenomenon in which easy money from commodities such as oil and gold leads governments to neglect other productive parts of their economies.  But by the 1970s, Venezuela was riding a spike in oil prices to what looked like a never-ending economic bonanza.  Complemented by years of stable democracy, it seemed a model country in an otherwise often troubled region.  Such success makes the sorry state of Venezuela's oil industry today, not to mention that of the country at large, all the more surprising — and tragic.  The same state that, six decades ago, dreamed up the idea of a cartel of oil exporters now must import petroleum to meet its needs.  Crude production has tanked, hitting a 28-year low in the fall of 2017 when it dipped under 2 million barrels a day.

Oil set to 'crater' Monday as OPEC meeting delayed, tensions flare between Saudi Arabia and Russia.  The virtual meeting between OPEC and its allies scheduled for Monday [4/6/2020] has been postponed, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC, amid mounting tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia.  The meeting will now "likely" be held on Thursday, sources said.  The Monday meeting was set after President Donald Trump said to CNBC on Thursday that he expected Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to announce a deal to cut production by up to 15 million barrels, and that he had spoken to both countries' leaders.

America In a New Upside-Down World.  The current oil glut and price crash — a result of a Saudi-Russian price war, in part directed at record U.S. production, in part due to the crumbling of OPEC, and less demand as a global public, frightened by the specter of the Wuhan virus, stays closer to home — are radically changing the relationship between oil sellers and buyers.  In particular, vulnerable cash-hungry exporting countries like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are losing clout. [...] Crashing oil prices will also hurt the expansionary agendas of Vladimir Putin's Russia, especially in places like Syria and Eastern Ukraine.  Russia is already bleeding billions of dollars by propping up the murderous Assad dictatorship in Syria.  Soon it will be doing so with far less apparent discretionary income.  Iran may be the biggest loser of the current chaos.  U.S. sanctions already had cut Iranian oil revenue by about 90 percent.

Why did Saudi Arabia start an oil price war?  Global benchmark oil prices took their biggest single day plunge in 30 years on Monday [3/9/2020] after Saudi Arabia said it would increase oil production even as global demand has slumped in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.  In response, Asian stock markets closed significantly down on Monday with the carnage spreading to the US, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 2,013 points, or 7.8 percent, in its single-day biggest point drop ever.  The situation stabilised somewhat on Tuesday in Asia with benchmark indexes in Sydney, Hong Kong and Shanghai rising.

Russia Parts Ways With OPEC+ on Oil Production.  The Democrat-media complex will ignore this bombshell report, which completely counters their 4-year-long narrative that President Trump is "in Vladimir Putin's pocket."  According to this Saturday report from Bloomberg News, the Russians are upping oil production to counter the economic leverage against the EU and Russia that President Trump has brought to bear, thanks to his deregulation and unleashing of the US oil and gas industry.

Highlights of the News.  Item 4: CNBC reported, "Experts are calling dramatically lower crude prices as major OPEC and non-OPEC producers prepare for an all-out price war, in a sudden U-turn from previous attempts to support the oil market as the new corona virus hammers global demand.  "'$20 oil in 2020 is coming,' Ali Khedery, formerly Exxon's senior Middle East advisor and now CEO of U.S.-based strategy firm Dragoman Ventures, wrote Sunday 3/8/2020] on Twitter. [...] The target seems to be American fracking.  Prices that low make fracking economically unfeasible.

US crude prices briefly drop below $28 a barrel after OPEC deal failure sparks price war.  il prices plunged after OPEC's failure to strike a deal with its allies regarding production cuts caused Saudi Arabia to slash its prices as it reportedly gets set to ramp up production, leading to fears of an all-out price war.  U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude and international benchmark Brent crude are tracking for their worst day since 1991.  WTI plunged 22%, or $9.15, to trade at $32.13 per barrel.  WTI is on pace for its second worst day on record, and earlier fell to a session low of $30, a level not seen since Feb. 2016.

Crude Oil Prices Crash As 'OPEC+ Is Dead' With All Production Limits Gone.  Crude oil prices plunged as talks at the OPEC+ meeting Friday collapsed without a deal, meaning all prior agreements to curb production will end next month.  Not only did OPEC and key partner Russia not agree to additional output curbs, but starting in April, current limits of 2.1 million barrels per day will no longer continue.

Qatar Quits OPEC after 57 years in Huge Swipe at Saudi Arabia as Middle East Fury rises.  Tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia were ratcheted up today [12/3/2018] as Qatar took a HUGE swipe at its Middle Eastern rivals.  Qatar said today it was quitting OPEC from January to focus on its gas ambitions, taking a swipe at the group's de facto leader Saudi Arabia and marring efforts to show unity before this week's meeting of exporters to tackle an oil price slide.  Doha, one of OPEC's smallest oil producers but the world's biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, is embroiled in a protracted diplomatic row with Saudi Arabia and some other Arab states.

Stocks dip as oil prices and energy companies fall sharply.  Energy companies and oil prices took their worst losses in months Friday [5/25/2018] on reports OPEC countries plan to produce more oil soon.  Stock indexes finished an indecisive week with small losses.  U.S. crude oil sank 4 percent after multiple reports indicated that Russia and OPEC could start producing more oil soon.  They cut production at the start of 2017 following a big buildup in supplies that had pushed prices lower.

Oil drops on rising U.S. crude inventories, OPEC seen to extend cuts.  Oil prices slipped on Thursday [10/12/2017] as U.S. fuel inventories rose despite efforts by OPEC to cut production.

Oil Expert Yardeni:  OPEC Should Break Agreement, Produce All It Can.  Plan A, it will be remembered, was instituted back in November 2014 when the 13-member cartel of oil producers decided to flood the world market in an attempt to drive much of the U.S. energy industry into bankruptcy.  To a small degree, it worked, shuttering more than 100 mostly small oil producers and cutting American crude oil production by about a million barrels of oil every day.  But that plan didn't work, as the vast majority of American energy producers continued to improve the fracking technology that brought down the breakeven point on lifting costs to stay in business.  Meanwhile OPEC producers' hopes to see massive production cuts by U.S. frackers never materialized.  So much for Plan A.  Plan B was implemented in November last year with OPEC's agreement to cut production in hopes that by taking upwards of two million barrels of daily production off the world market, demand would push oil prices to $60 a barrel and beyond.  It will be remembered that most of the cartel's members are deficit financing their military adventures and welfare states, with many of them needing oil at close to $100 a barrel to fund everything without borrowing or liquidating precious gold or foreign currency reserves.

Oil prices bounce after OPEC reaffirms plan to cut output.  Oil prices settled more than 1 percent higher on Monday, supported by news that U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will not face charges over her emails.  Gains, however, were capped by a rallying dollar on Clinton's improved prospects, making greenback-denominated oil more expensive for holders of other currencies, and by doubts over OPEC's planned production cuts.

Head-Scratcher: Venezuela Begs U.S. To Join OPEC Oil Talks.  This past week, OPEC countries and some major non-OPEC oil producers continued with their series of talks about a potential oil production freeze.  The hope is that even a slight reduction or freeze in oil production rates will raise oil prices.  Once again, these OPEC talks raised hopes but failed to reach an agreement.

OPEC puts Iran's oil output less than real volume.  OPEC has put Iran's oil output figure about 250,000 barrels per day less than the real volume, Ali Kardor the managing director of Iranian National Oil Company told Trend.  According to OPEC's latest monthly report based on the secondary sources, Iran produced about 3.65 million barrels per day (mb/d) of crude oil in September.

Oil prices surge as Putin says Russia ready to support OPEC production freeze or even cut.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will join the deal to cut global crude output.  Oil prices gained over three percent after the announcement on Monday with Brent crude reaching $53 per barrel and WTI trading above $51.

How OPEC lost control of the oil market.  This weekend, 13 countries with little in common will attempt to act as one — by coming to an agreement to curb oil production and prop up prices.  But the quarrelling members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, who meet Sunday in Doha, Qatar, have been acting less like a cartel and more like observers to a free market in crude oil.  And the odds of the group reaching anything more than a fragile agreement to "freeze" output at current levels are slim.  Given the nature of the 46-year-old cartel, it's no wonder.  Two of the group's members — longtime foes Iran and Saudi Arabia — are backing warring proxies in Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is reeling from falling oil prices, and it could get much worse.  Stung by falling oil prices, Saudi Arabia has cut spending and subsidies as part of harsh austerity measures that threaten the lavish welfare programs underpinning its stability.  The oil-exporting giant's economy has gone from producing windfalls to deficits, and Saudi rulers increasingly struggle to provide the cushy government jobs, expensive state handouts and tax-free living that have long bought them domestic obedience.  The pivot to austerity — which also has been imposed by neighboring Gulf Arab oil monarchies — risks triggering unrest in a Saudi society that is conservative and particularly resistant to change, analysts and diplomats warn.

OPEC Says Goodbye to $100 Oil.  The head of the world's oil cartel made an unusual concession Friday:  $100 oil is a thing of the past.  At its semi-annual meeting, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries chose to maintain its current production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day.  It was the second time OPEC passed on cutting its output amid weak oil prices.  Abdullah el-Badri, OPEC's secretary general, told reporters in Vienna that U.S. shale oil — a prime catalyst for oil's slump — is here to stay, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Opec willing to push oil price [down] to $40 says Gulf oil minister.  Opec's most influential producers are willing to allow oil prices to fall to $40 per barrel before discussing whether the cartel should hold an emergency meeting to discuss cutting output.  According to Suhail al-Mazrouei, energy minister of the United Arab Emirates and a high profile delegate of the cartel:  "We are not going to change our minds because the prices went to $60, or to $40."  The official's comments made to Bloomberg News at a conference in Dubai could add to further downward pressure on prices, which have already fallen more than 45pc since June.

The biggest game of chicken in the history of business.  For roughly 4 decades since the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, OPEC has called the shots and extracted trillions of dollars from the rest of the world by forcing oil prices to huge multiples of the cost of production for Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries like the Emirates, where holes can be punched in the desert and oil risen to the surface for a few dollars a barrel, and until recently, sold for over a hundred.  But the price umbrella that OPEC provided opened up the possibility of new sources of oil being developed with higher cost technologies like horizontal fracturing or refining Athabascan tar sands in Alberta. [...] OPEC is allowing prices to fall to a level at which some new technology sites may not be able to operate profitably, and will have to be closed down.

Great news - low oil prices are destroying Opec's power.  American presidents come and go.  Prime ministers are constantly changing. Many European finance ministers are lucky if they last even a year.  At G20 meetings, there is little point in striking up new friendships and allegiances.  As likely as not, they won't be there next time.  Yet amid this ever-shifting international elite, there is one constant — the abiding presence of the Saudi Arabian oil minister, Ali al-Naimi.  The diminutive Mr Naimi has been in the job for nearly 20 years now, and despite his age — he celebrates his 80th birthday next year — he shows few signs of leaving.

World on the brink of oil war as Opec bickers over price.  A secretive group of the world's most powerful oil ministers will soon gather in Vienna to take arguably one of the most important decisions that could affect the still fragile world economy:  whether to cut production of crude to defend prices at $100 per barrel, or keep open the spigots as winter looms among the biggest energy-consuming nations?

America's Untapped Energy Weapon.  Advanced-recovery technologies such as horizontal drilling and environmentally sound hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") have unlocked previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves, allowing substantially increased energy production.  Reducing regulatory obstacles (particularly on natural gas); promoting better transportation solutions such as additional pipeline infrastructure like Keystone XL; and allowing the export of crude-oil products and natural-gas production technology can significantly benefit America, domestically and internationally.

Egypt to increase petrol prices by up to 78% as government cuts subsidies.  Egypt will start raising petrol prices by up to 78% from midnight on Friday [7/4/2014], an oil ministry source told Reuters, as it tries to cut energy subsidies to ease the burden on its swelling budget deficit.  "The increase will start being implemented by midnight," the source said.  Food and energy subsidies traditionally eat up a quarter of state spending and the government is taking steps to reform its subsidy programme and revive an economy that has been battered by more than three years of political turmoil.  The source said the price of 92-octane petrol would be 2.60 Egyptian pounds (21p) a litre, up 40% from its current price of 1.85 pounds, while 80-octane petrol would rise to 1.60 pounds a litre, up 78%.

It's payback for OPEC.  Forty years ago this week, America received a harsh lesson about the dangers of relying on others for energy.  President Nixon's decision in the midst of the Yom Kippur War to resupply Israel with U.S. weaponry gave members of the OPEC cartel an excuse to embargo oil supplies to this country and drive up prices worldwide.  It became known as the "oil shock" of 1973.  Ever since, politicians of both parties have promised to reduce our dependency on unreliable foreign sources.  To that end, over the past four decades, they have invested untold sums on various schemes — imposing price controls, producing synthetic fuels and subsidizing ethanol production, curbing demand and diversifying overseas sources of supply for oil and natural gas.

Why OPEC No Longer Calls the Shots.  Forty years ago, on Oct. 17, 1973, the world experienced its first "oil shock" as Arab exporters declared an embargo on shipments to Western countries. [...] The Prudhoe Bay oil field was discovered in Alaska five years before the crisis.  Yet opposition by environmentalists had prevented approval for a pipeline to bring the oil down from the North Slope — very much a "prequel" to the current battle over the Keystone XL pipeline.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2014 by Andrew K. Dart

ISIS' thirst for oil could lead to 'global catastrophe' if unchecked, experts say.  Islamic State's thirst for blood has the world on edge, but its equally insatiable yearning for oil could prove a "catastrophe" for the global economy if the terror organization isn't stopped, experts say.  The jihadist group, formerly known as ISIS, now controls seven oil fields and two small refineries in northern Iraq, bringing in as much as $2 million per day by selling up to 40,000 barrels via middlemen in illicit deals.  The black market oil sells for roughly $25 to $60 per barrel, compared to the current market rate of $102, according to Luay al-Khatteeb, founder and executive director of the Iraq Energy Institute.

Analyst: Fall Of Baghdad Would Make Current Gas Prices 'Look Like A Bargain'.  Oil industry analysts are warning a brewing civil war between Islamic militants in Iraq could potentially send gas prices soaring here in the Southland.  KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports the price of crude oil has shot up to $107 per barrel — the highest in 10 months — on reports that soldiers with the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria captured two towns in an ethnically mixed province northeast of Baghdad.

Why gunmen have turned off Libya's oil taps.  Armed groups in Libya are currently blocking key oilfields and ports — hijacking the government of its main source of revenue and leading to some fuel shortages and blackouts.  Billions of dollars have been lost over the last few months as oil production has plummeted, costing about $130 [million] (£82 [million]) a day.