Yahoo Finance Oil Prices Fall After Trump Called on OPEC to “Reduce Pricing Now”
Investing.com – Oil prices fell on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump urged the world’s major oil producing countries to do more to stabilize oil markets.
Crude Oil WTI Futures for August delivery were trading at $73.86 a barrel at 12:02AM ET (04:02 GMT), down 0.38%. Brent Oil Futures for September delivery, traded in London, were also down 0.73% at $77.67 per barrel.
“The OPEC Monopoly must remember that gas prices are up & they are doing little to help. If anything, they are driving prices higher as the United States defends many of their members for very little $’s. This must be a two way street. REDUCE PRICING NOW!” Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday.
His comments came only days after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia reviewed the possibility of the kingdom releasing more of its own oil to dampen rising prices.
"With contentious midterm U.S. elections looming, the President continues to strong-arm Saudi Arabia to increase oil supplies which, at least for now, is containing price action below WTI $75 per barrel," said Stephen Innes, Head of Trading for Asia/Pacific at futures brokerage OANDA.
Meanwhile, developments in Saudi Arabia remained in focus as King Salman agreed that the country, at its discretion, would add more output to the market. The Saudis, however, did not specify any production targets.
“This incident with the Saudis and the U.S. administration is just noise … You cannot order 2 million barrels like ordering a coffee somewhere,” Beat Wittmann, a partner at financial consultancy Porta Advisors, told CNBC
Looming U.S. sanctions against major oil exporter Iran also received some attention, as the U.S. government said it wants to shut Iran’s oil exports out of the market from November.
"A key driver of the rise in prices has been the OPEC-Russia deal to cut oil output, compounded by collapsing Venezuelan production and the U.S. decision to end the Iran deal," National Australia Bank (NAB) said in its July outlook.
OPEC together with a group of non-OPEC producers led by Russia started to withhold output in 2017 to prop up prices.
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