Oil price rise another reminder of Saudi Arabia’s lever over Biden

Oil price rise another reminder of Saudi Arabia’s lever over Biden

As American motorists face soaring fuel prices, Saudi Arabia once more finds itself the focus of Joe Biden’s frustration.

When the US president bemoaned the failure of the world’s top oil producers to pump more crude to help bring down prices, he singled out two countries: traditional adversary Russia and longtime partner Saudi Arabia. Speaking at the G20 meeting last month, Biden said their failure to produce more “so people can have gasoline to get to and from work . . . [was] not right”.

So far, however, Saudi Arabia — Opec’s de facto leader, the world’s top oil exporter and the only producer with the capacity to add significant amounts of crude to the market — is not budging. Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman insisted last week that oil was “not the problem”, arguing the issue was that the “energy complex is going through havoc and hell”.

But the suspicion is that the reluctance to bow to US pressure is not solely related to market dynamics as Riyadh continues to smart over Biden’s coolness towards Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“There’s a clear view in Washington that this is probably more than just about oil, that Prince Mohammed is annoyed Biden hasn’t called him personally,