Market Share or Higher Prices? Saudi, Russia Oil Dilemma
Published in Oil Industry News on Wednesday, 29 March 2017 Saudi Arabia and Russia are likely to discover that when pursuing two incompatible goals, the one deemed less important will ultimately be sacrificed. The world's top two oil exporters appear to be chasing both higher crude prices through their curbs to production and market share by increasing exports, at least in Asia, the world's biggest crude importing region and the fastest growing. The question is which of these two goals will ultimately be abandoned in favor of the other, and how long will it take for Saudi Arabia and Russia to realize the incompatibility of their dual ambitions? The crude import data from Asia's biggest buyers show the scale of the challenge facing Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two countries that are the lynchpins of the November agreement between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first...