Saudi Arabia has delivered what Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak called “a New Year’s gift” to the oil market with its surprise announcement of an extra 1 million b/d production cut, blowing away expectations that the OPEC+ alliance would merely roll over its collective output ceiling. Saudi Arabia will hold its February and March crude production to 8.119 million b/d, well below its quota of 9.119 million b/d, to help bring down oil inventories that had bloated from the pandemic, energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said Jan. 5, after two days of OPEC+ talks. “We do that with the purpose of supporting our economy, the economies of our friends and OPEC+ countries, and for the betterment of the industry at all levels,” he said in a post-meeting press conference. The cut is unilateral, […]