US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman had agreed to his request to ramp up oil production, a week after OPEC already announced an output rise. The official Saudi Press Agency confirmed a phone call between the two leaders about oil but mentioned no specifics.
In a tweet on Saturday, Trump said King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had agreed to his request to boost production by “maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels.”
Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the turmoil & disfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference…Prices to high! He has agreed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2018
The Saudi Press Agency said Mr Trump had called King Salman and the two highlighted “the necessity of doing efforts in order to preserve the stability of the oil market and the global economic growth.”
Oil prices have spiked in the past week, and on Thursday crude rose above $74 a barrel for the first time since late 2014. The 13% surge in prices has been driven by a series of factors in the international oil market that will trickle down to US drivers filling up their gas tanks.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter and has usually kept at least 1.5 million to two million barrels per day of spare capacity, according to the United States Energy Information Administration.
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