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WASHINGTON — President Biden, who as a candidate vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” in response to the assassination of a prominent dissident, has decided to travel to Riyadh this month to rebuild relations with the oil-rich kingdom at a time when he is seeking to lower gas prices at home and isolate Russia abroad.

In a move that would lessen the U.S. dollar's dominance of the global petroleum market, Saudi Arabia is talking with China about pricing oil sales to Beijing in yuan, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move, which WSJ learned from people familiar with the situation, would mark another shift by the world's top crude exporter toward Asia. "The dynamics have dramatically changed," one Saudi official told WSJ. "The U.S. relationship with the Saudis has changed; China is the world’s biggest crude importer and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom.

Iran launched nearly a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones from its territory in the attack on a key Saudi oil facility Saturday, a senior Trump administration official told ABC News Sunday.It is an extraordinary charge to make, that Iran used missiles and drones to attack its neighbor and rival Saudi Arabia, as the region teeters on the edge of high tensions.President Donald Trump warned the U.S. was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attack on Sunday, waiting for verification of who was responsible and for word from Saudi Arabia on how to proceed.https://abcnews.go.com/International/iran-fired-cruise-missiles-attack-saudi-oil-facility/story?id=65632653  

Previously we documented that as a result of the still low oil prices, largely a result of Saudi Arabian strategy to put high cost producers out of business and to remove excess supply, none other than Saudi Arabia has been substantially impacted, with the result being dramatic state budget, a sharp economic slowdown and mass worker layoffs. Just three weeks ago we reported that the biggest construction conglomerate in the middle east, the Saudi Binladin Group had announced it would layoff 50,000 workers ot a quarter of its workforce, slammed by the weak economy. Now, Saudi Arabia has admitted that...

Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Saturday replaced his veteran oil minister and restructured some big ministries in a major reshuffle apparently intended to support a wide-ranging economic reform programme unveiled last week. The most eye-catching move was the creation of a new Energy, Industry and Natural Resources Ministry under Khaled al-Falih, chairman of the state oil company Aramco. He replaces the 80-year-old oil minister Ali al-Naimi, in charge of energy policy at the world's biggest oil exporter since 1995. But major changes were also made to the economic leadership, with Majed al-Qusaibi named head of the new Commerce and Investment...

The end of Ali al-Naimi's more than two-decade tenure as Saudi Arabia's oil minister signals a new era for crude markets, analysts said on Saturday, and appeared to be a reaffirmation of Saudi policy to let oil set its own pricing. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree that replaced al-Naimi with Khalid al-Falih, chairman of Saudi Aramco, as part of a broad reshuffling of the cabinet. The move came as the world's largest oil producer continues to grapple with the fallout from the global bear market in crude oil. Al Naimi was the most watched figure in the...

No incentive for Saudis to let up Getty Saudi Arabia's minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Ali al-Naimi (C) arrives for the OPEC meeting, in the Qatari capital Doha, By WilliamWatts Deputy markets editor Why would the Saudis give up now?That’s the question crude oil bulls should have been asking themselves ahead of the Sunday meeting of major oil producers that failed to produce an agreement to put a lid on production. Prospects for a deal fell apart after Iran refused to sign up, prompting Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing producer, to effectively walk away. Those that believed Riyadh had...

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister spoke in Houston at the IHS CERAWeek conference, where he poured cold water on the prospect of a production cut. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi, one of the most important voices in the oil world, spoke at the conference on Tuesday. He first suggested that the production freeze being negotiated between several key OPEC members and Russia could be a building block. “Freeze is the beginning of a process, and that means if we can get all the major producers to agree not to add additional balance, then this high inventory we have now will probably...

The world's oil powers remain deeply at odds. Iran's oil minister Bijan Zangeneh on Tuesday called the Saudi Arabia-led idea for countries to freeze production a "joke," according to Iranian state broadcaster Press TV. Iran's mocking of the oil freeze came at the same time as the top Saudi oil official was in the U.S. trumpeting the idea. The freeze is the beginning of a process," Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said during a highly-anticipated speech on Tuesday at the IHS CERAWeek oil conference in Houston. "Maybe not all of them, but most of the countries that count will freeze,"...

HOUSTON - This week, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi will for the first time face the victims of his decision to keep oil pumps flowing despite a global glut: U.S. shale oil producers struggling to survive the worst price crash in years. While soaring U.S. shale output brought on by the hydraulic fracturing revolution contributed to oversupply, many blame the 70-percent price collapse in the past 20 months primarily on Naimi, seen as the oil market’s most influential policymaker. During his keynote on Tuesday at the annual IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston, Naimi is addressing U.S. wildcatters and executives who...

If oil stays around $50 a barrel, most countries in the region will run out of cash in five years or less, warned a dire report from the International Monetary Fund this week. That includes OPEC leader Saudi Arabia as well as Oman and Bahrain. Low oil prices will wipe out an estimated $360 billion from the region this year alone, the IMF said.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday made deep reductions to the prices it charges for its oil, hard on the heels of cuts last month by rival producers in the Gulf. With U.S. production still increasing despite lower oil prices, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are battling to keep their share of the last growing markets in Asia. In a list of official prices sent to customers, state-oil company Saudi Aramco cut the price of its light-crude deliveries to Asia by $1.7 a barrel. As a result, it switched to a discount of $1.6 a barrel against the...

Saudi Arabia continues to ratchet up production, taking market share away from U.S. shale producers. According to OPEC’s latest monthly oil report, Saudi Arabia boosted its oil output to 10.31 million barrels per day in April, a slight increase over the previous month’s total of 10.29 million barrels. That was enough for the de facto OPEC leader to claim its highest oil production level in more than three decades. Saudi Arabia has increased production by 700,000 barrels per day since the fourth quarter of 2014 in an effort maintain market share. The resulting crash in oil prices is forcing some...

In earlier time, the death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud would have rocked the oil market. The succession plan has always pointed in a direction away from U.S. interests and a turn toward an even harder line on Middle East issues. The antipathy toward Iran will be levered up, and the various Sunni-Shia battles will likely see greater escalation. Oil prices have quickly jumped $1.00 per barrel on the news in a knee-jerk reaction to the uncertainty. What is more likely is an even greater commitment to over supplying the market, in attempt to drive out...

Only by overlooking important forces in markets and politics can anyone assert that Saudi Arabia is letting crude prices fall mainly to extinguish competition from North American shale oil. With oil, the Saudi regime always takes the long view. With security, however, its motivations are more immediate. The kingdom faces unusually intense threats: Islamic State (IS) militancy in Iraq and Syria, the chance that Iran won’t agree by a Nov. 24 deadline to suspend its nuclear ambitions, terrorist insurrections from restive Yemen, durability of the menacing government of Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus. Falling oil prices hurt the IS and Iran,...

Since about 2009 and until just recently, Saudi Arabia shipped discounted crude to the U.S. in growing volumes even as total U.S. waterborne imports fell. But while Saudi Arabia isn’t about to exit the U.S. market, cheaper domestic crude oils are beginning to displace Saudi imports. Daily U.S. crude imports fell from 11.8 million barrels in 2010 to 9.8 million barrels in 2013. Over roughly the same period, U.S. daily oil imports from Saudi Arabia rose from an annual average of just under 1.1 million barrels to about 1.5 million barrels, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration....

Up to 233 billion barrels of oil has been discovered in the Australian outback that could be worth trillions of dollars, in a find that could turn the region into a new Saudi Arabia. _____ The discovery in central Australia was reported by Linc Energy to the stock exchange and was based on two consultants reports, though it is not yet known how commercially viable it will be to access the oil. The reports estimated the company’s 16 million acres of land in the Arckaringa Basin in South Australia contain between 133 billion and 233 billion barrels of shale oil...

In spite of the Obama Administration's hostility to carbon-rich energy, private actors with private capital deployed on private (and state) land have launched a game-changing revolution in domestic oil and natural gas production. A scarcely reported milestone conveys the magnitude of this turnaround in the global energy landscape. The U.S. passed Saudi Arabia as the world's largest petroleum producer in November 2012, according to recently released data of the federal Energy Information Administration. Over the last five years, domestic oil output has risen 40% and continually outpaces projections. Last year, domestic output increased by 800,000 barrels per day. This is...

While the green movement naively harbours hopes it will be able to shut down unconventional oil and gas development, in Saudi Arabia they are already contemplating a time when North American fossil fuel will replace their oil. Looking past the din of protesters, state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco is resigned to the fact that its influence will wane because of the massive unconventional fossil-fuel development underway in North America. As such, Saudi Arabia has no plans to raise its production output to 15 million barrels per day from 12 million, said Khalid Al-Falih, the powerful chief executive of Aramco. “There...

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia's oil minister said on Sunday the market was oversupplied and the kingdom had reduced output, sending a the strongest signal yet that OPEC may not boost output in June to quell soaring oil prices. Consumers have urged the exporters' group to add supply to halt the rally in oil prices that has taken crude to its highest level in 2 1/2 years amid unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, but OPEC members say there is little they can do to bring prices down. "The market is overbalanced ... Our production in February was...