US Dismisses Saudi Arabia's Defence Of OPEC+ Oil Output Cuts

The United States on Thursday (13 October) dismissed the Saudi Arabia's defence of OPEC+ decision to slash oil supply.

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.

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 and that the cuts had been decided purely on economic basis.

The Saudi statement on Thursday 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 can try to spin or deflect, but the facts are simple,” John Kirby, a top spokesperson for the US National Security Council, was quoted by Financial Times as saying.

Kirby added that the Saudis had in recent weeks conveyed their intention to the US, privately and publicly, to reduce oil production which they knew would "increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions".