... quarantines.
In Saudi Arabia, in turn, the ongoing turbulence challenges its implementation of
Vision 2030
and amasses potential for destabilization of the elites —
recent arrests
in the Saudi royal family attest to just that.
This not to mention other oil-supplying countries whose gold and currency reserves are much more modest than those of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
“We [Russians] have a big enough safety margin to finance our obligations. … The current prices in the oil market suggest our reserves could be
enough for six years
,” Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in a recent interview ...
The Saudi-Russian recent rapprochement is definitely not a coincidence and the decision to reset ... ... relations had been made three years ago. It all started with King Salman taking power in Saudi Arabia in January of 2015. The newly assigned, aged and experienced King has been... ... Iranian one. Plus, Russians and Saudis have a lot to discuss and cooperate such as Oil and Gas markets, they have to deal openly at some point. It is in none favour to...
... achieve much, while losing them their market share. Moreover, in the foreseeable future, global crude output is set to grow not because of Russian or Saudi production but rather thanks to Iraq, Iran and possibly also Libya and Nigeria. The US shale oil factor should not be disregarded either.
Saudi Arabia and Russia have similar problems and seek similar solutions: the two countries both need oil dollars, investments and new technology.
Second and perhaps more importantly, gone are the days when OPEC could influence the oil prices to any significant extent,...
... cooperation with Persian Gulf states in solving statehood crises in the Middle East. Dr. Majed Al Turki, Director of the Saudi Centre for Media and Arab-Russian Studies (Saudi Arabia) commented on the pact between Russia and Saudi Arabia to stabilise the oil market.
Russia and Saudi Arabia had long been unable to reach consensus on crude oil price stabilisation for quite a long time. What was the reason for the quite unexpected signing of the memorandum on the sidelines of the G20 summit?
First off, economic reasons must be ...
... to note that prices rose, approaching 40 USD/bbl, precisely after information about an imminent agreement among oil producers regarding a
production freeze at January 2016 levels emerged
. At a February 16 meeting in Doha, aimed at supporting global oil prices, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela decided to fix the average 2016 oil output at January levels, but they made it clear that implementation of the freeze was conditional upon other nations agreeing to participate. Readiness to support the measure was expressed ...
During the last part of 2014, optimism steadily raised over the unusually low prices of oil and their allegedly positive economic effects on the economies of oil importing ... ... recessive effects are doomed to happen anyway. For example, according to the IMF, in 2015 Russia will supposedly lose a chunk of its GDP amounting to 3%.
That would explain... .... Some others would instead benefit, but deliberately chose not do so, most notably Saudi Arabia. Countries belonging to this group may be employing this strategy to gain...
... Saudi Arabia, a traditional ally of the United States in the Middle East, is deliberately refusing to cut its oil supply as part of a geopolitical maneuver to damage Russia, whose economy is markedly dependent on oil and gas exports. One problem is that Russia's breakeven price for oil sales is allegedly close to Saudi Arabia's, hence the objection that trying to infer that this could be a coordinated move against Moscow's economy might be a far-fetched supposition. Of course, the world's general diplomatic unrest, and the current outright ...
... want to “harm Russia” in a similar way
[2]
, and Iran’s former oil minister Masoud Mir Kazemi believes that the USA and Saudi Arabia are also reckoning on damaging Iran.
“Am I the only one who thinks this, or is it really an oil war in which the USA and Saudi Arabia are taking action against Russia and Iran?” writes the well-known American political commentator Thomas Friedman. He assumes that Saudi Arabia and the USA intend to “pump Iran and Russia to death”, in other words to “bankrupt them”
[3]
.
“There ...
... could it as it holds relatively minor amount of global oil reserves – which are depleting quickly.
Russia may have emerged from the ashes of USSR, but it was far from a Phoenix as during 4-5 stages it once again had little sway – obviously Russia makes the most oil in the world, occasionally swapping places with Saudi Arabia for the top branch, but the Saudis wield OPEC which allows them to work more or less as a unit. In a way the situation has worsened as during the 1-3 stages oil markets were undeveloped, so being a price-taker still gave time to catch up,...