Trump’s Oil Request An Order for Saudis to Leave OPEC: Iran

The US president’s announcement that Saudi Arabia has agreed to his request for a rise in the oil output is tantamount to an American order for the kingdom to bow out of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Iran’s OPEC envoy said.

Reacting to a tweet by US President Donald Trump about a request from Saudi Arabia’s king for a boost to oil output, Iran’s OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili said, “Putting aside the fact that Saudi Arabia has no such capacity to bolster its crude output, this demand could be inferred as an order for the kingdom to walk out of OPEC.”

“Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided during the group’s 174th meeting in Vienna last week to maintain their previous agreement to cut output by 1.2 mbd and keep the production ceiling at 32.5 mbd and only diminish over-compliance with the agreement and bring it to 100 percent,” Shana quoted Ardebili as saying.

The comments came after Trump said in a tweet, “Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the turmoil and disfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference…Prices to high! He has agreed!”

OPEC agreed in late June to raise oil production by around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from July for the group and its allies.