Saudi Arabia Defends OPEC+ Oil Production Cut After Biden Warns Of 'Consequences'

Saudi Arabia on Thursday (13 October) defended the OPEC+ decision to slash oil output despite extensive lobbying by the US.

After the oil producer group’s decision last week to slash 2 million barrels a day from its output quotas, the US said OPEC+ had “aligned with Russia”, Riyadh’s ally in the cartel.

On Tuesday (11 October), President Joe Biden had warned that Saudi Arabia would face "consequences" after OPEC+ decision.

"There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done with Russia," Biden said of Saudi Arabia in an interview with CNN.

“I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be - there will be consequences," he added.

In a detailed defence of the OPEC+ move, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said that the decision to cut oil supply was taken unanimously by all member states of the OPEC+ group.

The Saudi statement on Thursday (13 October) also appeared to suggest that the Biden administration had asked the kingdom to delay a plan to cut oil production by a month.

A delay in oil output cut would have reduced the impact of any increase in crude prices until after the US congressional midterm elections.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry said that it has taken note of the statements issued about the OPEC+ decision and the Kingdom taking sides in international conflicts, and that it was "politically motived against the United States of America".

"The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would first like to express its total rejection of these statements that are not based on facts, and which are based on portraying the OPEC+ decision out of its purely economic context. This decision was taken unanimously by all member states of the OPEC+ group," the statement said.

The Saudi statement said that Opec+ decisions were based “purely on economic considerations”.