Pipes feed crude oil to the 'Xin Run Yang' oil tanker, operated by Cosco Shipping Holdings Co., during loading operations near the Ras Tanura oil refinery, in Res Tanura, Saudi Arabia. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
OPEC has lost what control of the oil market it ever had. The actions (or tweets) of three men — Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman — will determine the course of oil prices in 2019 and beyond. But of course they each want different things.
While OPEC struggles to find common purpose, the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia dominate global supply. Together they produce more oil than the 15 members of OPEC. All three are pumping at record rates and each could raise output again next year, although they may not all choose to do so.
It was Saudi Arabia and Russia that led the push in June for the OPEC+ group to relax output restraints that had been in place since the start of 2017. Both subsequently jacked up production to record, or near record, levels. U.S. output soared unexpectedly at the same time, as companies pumping from the Permian Basin in Texas overcame pipeline bottlenecks to move their oil to the Gulf coast.
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These increases, alongside smaller downward revisions to demand growth forecasts and President Trump's decision to grant sanctions waivers to buyers of Iranian oil, have flipped market sentiment from fears of a supply shortage to concerns about a glut in the space of three months. Oil stockpiles in the developed nations of the OECD, which had been falling since early 2017, are rising again and are likely to exceed their five-year average level when October data are finalized, according to the International Energy Agency.
As oil prices have headed south, Saudi Arabia said it would cut exports by 500,000 barrels a day next month and warned fellow producers that they needed to cut about 1 million barrels a day from October production levels. That drew a lukewarm response from Putin and swift Twitter rebuke from Trump.
