Donald Trump claims that the OPEC should raise their daily oil production by 2 million barrels. During his interview to Fox News, he accused the oil cartel of manipulating oil prices.
On June 30th, Donald Trump tweeted that the King of Saudi Arabia promised him to raise the OPEC’s oil production by 2 million barrels a day since the global market is currently suffering from the shortage of crude oil due to Venezuela and Iran’s inability to ship oil to the global market. This oil deficit is pushing oil prices higher, which is why the OPEC should stop capping their oil production.
Eventually, it turned out that President Trump was too hasty. The Saudi news agency confirmed the fact of a phone call between the two leaders. They agreed on the necessity to maintain stable oil prices. However, the king made no promises about his intensions to initiate an oil production hike.
Later on, the Press Secretary of the White House hurried up to justify her boss’s blooper by saying that during the phone call the King meant that Saudi Arabia is capable of raising their production by 2 million barrels a day but they would use this option wisely whenever necessary.
The WSJ assumes that Saudi Arabia is unlikely to make this step. At this point, the Saudis are producing some 10 million barrels a day. So, at this point, it would be too costly for them to expand their production capacities.
