The Saudi-Russian Oil Axis Snubs Biden With Production Cuts

The Saudi-Russian Oil Axis Snubs Biden With Production Cuts

The OPEC+ cartel has just delivered a massive snub to Western governments facing the worst energy crisis in half a century. Look past the buzzwords accompanying Wednesday’s cut in oil production — preemptive move, uncertain outlook — and it’s difficult to see the move as anything but an attack on a global economy that desperately needs the price of crude to remain subdued.

In all its history, OPEC — and its new incarnation, the OPEC+ alliance — has never curbed output so much, and so quickly, while Brent was still flirting with $100 a barrel. Triple-digit prices used to push the group into output-boost mode, not the reverse.

Breaking with tradition, OPEC+ on Wednesday announced it will reduce output by 2 million barrels a day — on paper — in November. Because so many of its members aren’t meeting their output targets, the real cut would be smaller, about 950,000 barrels per day, and shouldered mostly by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

For much of the past two years, the oil cartel has opted for a gradual, phased approach to managing supply. On Wednesday, it opted for “shock and awe” — it’s difficult to reconcile the big cut with the