Saudi oil policy adrift despite Aramco’s eye-watering earnings

摘要

Saudi Arabia has no easy answer to falling oil prices. The kingdom could provoke an international backlash by slashing exports, or open a new war with US shale producers by flooding the market with cheap crude. The former risks the ire of US President Donald Trump, but the latter would shatter the fragile economies of its OPEC partners and threaten the IPO of Aramco. The value of Brent crude has slumped 20 percent since April and traded recently below $57/b after a slew of bad data tethered the market’s few remaining oil bulls. OPEC’s members, led by Saudi Arabia, require oil trading closer to $80/b to sustain their high-spending autocratic economies.