<\/p>\n
On Friday, he walked out of a meeting with the titans of America\u2019s oil industry without any public declaration of a plan to curtail domestic output, saying it\u2019s a free market and\u00a0up to\u00a0Saudi Arabia and Russia to solve their price war that sent crude crashing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His remarks call into question Trump\u2019s ability to broker a truce between the world\u2019s two biggest crude exporters at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is destroying demand and threatening the shale industry\u2019s survival. The president said that tariffs on oil imports could be imposed, though he\u2019s not planning to do that at the moment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While both Saudi Arabia and Russia have expressed openness to coordinated production cuts \u2014 and Trump said a deal between the two nations will come soon \u2014 it\u2019s unclear that can be achieved without the U.S. and other nations also taking part. On Saturday, renewed diplomatic tension between Riyadh and Moscow further blurred the outlook for a deal. Asked whether America would join in, Trump was evasive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a free market. We\u2019ll figure it out,\u201d he told reporters in Washington after the gathering with the heads of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and other major producers. \u201cUltimately the marketplace will take care of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Left to its own devices, though, the market is poised to collapse further as the Covid-19 crisis could slash global crude demand by almost a third. Hundreds of thousands of industry jobs are hanging in the balance, with about $15 billion of investments wiped out from the budgets of shale explorers and many of them on the brink of bankruptcy. Oil producer Whiting Petroleum Corp. and service provider Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc. filed for bankruptcy this week.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So now all eyes turn to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which was initially slated to convene on Monday in a virtual meeting with members, allies and guests including the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta, in a bid to address crude\u2019s meltdown. But that meeting was delayed as Riyadh and Moscow traded barbs about who\u2019s to blame for the collapse in oil prices. The alliance is now tentatively\u00a0aiming to\u00a0hold the virtual gathering on April 9, a delegate familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0up to\u00a0the meeting on Monday\u00a0chaired\u00a0by Saudi Arabia to deliver the 10 million barrels a day promised by Trump, without U.S. participation,\u201d Roger Diwan, oil analyst at IHS Markit Ltd, said before the meeting was postponed. \u201cThat\u2019s a very high bar to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country is prepared to take part in deep cuts in oil production together with Saudi Arabia and other major producers. On Saturday, however, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said comments by Putin laying blame on Riyadh for the end of the OPEC+ pact between the two countries in March were \u201cfully devoid of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trump vowed to support the U.S. oil industry with measures that include filling the country\u2019s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease the glut as storage tanks in distribution hubs are almost filled to the brim.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get our energy back,\u201d he said during a portion of Friday\u2019s meeting that was open to reporters. \u201cI\u2019m with you 1,000%. It\u2019s a great business, it\u2019s a very vital business and honestly, you\u2019ve been very fair. You\u2019ve kept energy prices reasonable for a long period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The meeting included Exxon Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, Occidental Petroleum Corp.\u2019s Vicki Hollub and Energy Transfer LP\u2019s Kelcy Warren. Greg Garland, chairman and CEO of Phillips 66, and Mike Wirth, chairman and CEO of Chevron, also attended.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The executives didn\u2019t ask for a bailout, according to Trump. They did discuss tariffs on foreign oil, which \u201care a way of evening the score,\u201d he said. \u201cAm I thinking about imposing it as of this moment? No, but if we are not treated fairly, its certainly a tool in the toolbox.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ClearView Energy Partners\u00a0analysts said\u00a0Trump\u2019s comments Friday indicate the U.S. is likely to prod the Russia-Saudi talks along not by expressing a willingness to cut U.S. production but rather a willingness to impose tariffs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Restricting imports with a tariff, an idea championed by Oklahoma oil tycoon Harold Hamm, a Trump confidant, is one of the most contentious matters, with refiners and Northeast U.S. gas producers firmly opposed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Prior to the gathering Trump had indicated he already has a plan in mind for helping oil companies he says are being \u201cravaged\u201d by a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. He said he knows what to do to solve the problem, though he declined to reveal the strategy other than to say it\u2019s \u201ctough\u201d and \u201cI\u2019d rather not do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that addressing the growing supply glut, which has been exacerbated by collapsing demand, would be difficult. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a long time to \u2014 to get rid of that,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s massive excess amounts of oil and gas. Massive. Like probably there\u2019s never been.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told oil industry representatives shortly after Trump\u2019s meeting that he expected a Saudi-Russia deal on crude production cuts within days. While he didn\u2019t provide details on what a deal might look like, he stressed that his agency was working with counterparts in both nations, according to four people familiar with the call who asked not to be named detailing a private conversation.<\/p>\n
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On Friday, he walked out of a meeting with the titans of America\u2019s oil industry without any public declaration of a plan to curtail domestic output, saying it\u2019s a free market and\u00a0up to\u00a0Saudi Arabia and Russia to solve their price war that sent crude crashing. His remarks call into question Trump\u2019s ability to broker a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1202,4144,1375,1083,166,1545,2957,4355],"class_list":["post-7558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-deal","tag-free","tag-global","tag-market","tag-oil","tag-response","tag-save","tag-trumps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/7559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}