Riyadh, Abu Dhabi Uphold OPEC+ Oil Cuts as US Envoy Worried Over Global Economic ‘Uncertainty’

In early October, OPEC+ unanimously agreed to reduce oil production by two million barrels per day starting in November in response to uncertainty in global energy markets.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have upheld a recent move by OPEC+ to slash oil production as a US envoy warned of the global economic volatility in the not-so-distant future.

In an apparent nod to the oil cartel’s decision on oil cut, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference on Monday that “we [Riyadh] don’t owe it to anybody but us.”

“It was done for us, by us, for our future, and we need to commit ourselves to that,” he said.

Bin Salman was echoed by his Emirati counterpart Suhail al-Mazrouei, who hinted that a surge in oil production would unlikely be in place soon even though OPEC and its allies are "only a phone call away if the requirements are there” to increase output.

“I can assure you that we in the United Arab Emirates, as well as our fellow colleagues in OPEC+ are keen on supplying the world with the requirement it needs. But at the same time, we’re not the only producers in the world,” al-Mazrouei noted.

Amos Hochstein, the US envoy for energy affairs, for his part told the Abu Dhabi conference that he thinks “at the end of the day, we are facing an economic uncertainty globally”.

“Energy prices have to be priced in a way that allow for economic growth. And if they are not […] they will rise too high and accelerate an economic downturn, which ultimately is the one thing that will be terrible for energy demand itself,” the envoy asserted.

This came after White House Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby insisted last week that OPEC+’s move to cut oil production contradicts the talks between the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia on boosting oil output.

Kirby recalled that the US discussed the issue with the Saudi leadership before and during President Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom in July and that there was an increase in oil production in the aftermath of his trip.

OPEC+ took a two-million-barrels­­­-per-day oil cut early this month, citing uncertainty in global energy markets. The Biden administration denounced the move as short-sighted amid rising energy prices in the US and Europe, accusing Saudi Arabia of aligning itself with Russia.

Riyadh rejected the allegations, stressing that the decision to slash oil production was to stabilize the global market amid declining demand caused by slowing economies across the world.