Saudi Arabia’s assertive rhetoric has caused discontent with Washington and Moscow. Recently, the White House criticized its ally, Saudi Arabia, for supporting the Kremlin’s proposal to cut oil production rates under the OPEC+ deal. Now it is Russia’s turn to give utterance to its anger. Being the de-factor leader of oil producer cartel OPEC, Saudi Arabia affirmed its key role in the OPEC+ pact without adjusting any decisions to Russia.
The OPEC+ summit in October was accompanied by bombastic reports in Russian federal media. Moscow reportedly set the tone for the deal and assured other major oil exporters to agree on steep output cuts, which certainly was a slap in the face of the US administration. This decision proves once again that Moscow is unwilling to dance to Washington’s tune. However, the Kremlin’s joy was overshadowed by statements from Riyadh. King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud underscored the Kingdom’s crucial role in the cartel’s decision to reduce the joint output rates by 2 million barrels per day. Citing the monarch, pursuing its energy strategy, “Riyadh was working hard to support stability and balance in global oil markets”. In other words, Saudi Arabia acts as a linchpin in establishing and maintaining the agreement of the OPEC+ alliance.
At the last summit held in early October, OPEC and its allies reached a consensus on sharp oil output cuts starting from November 2022 to prop up flagging oil prices. The news caught the White House off-guard. In response, US President Joe Biden said that Russia is to blame for sky-high gasoline prices in the US. However, it would make sense to accuse Saudi Arabia of pushing other oil exporters into the agreement. Robert Menendez, the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed to express Washington’s aversion to the OPEC’s decision by suspending deliveries of US weapons to Riyadh.
