Trump accuses OPEC of raising oil prices

Donald Trump and Iran exchanged sharp words over oil prices on Wednesday, with Tehran accusing the US president of contributing to volatile prices after he withdraw from a global nuclear arms deal last month.

OPEC on Tuesday said that the oil market outlook in the second-half of 2018 is highly uncertain and warned of downside risks to demand. “Not good!” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

Oil traders will be waiting to see what the world’s most powerful oil producer Saudi Arabia – likened to “Superman” by the respected oil market expert Helima Croft – says and does at the forthcoming meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC producers on June 22. With record amounts of Oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships at sea.

According to the ministry, Pradhan is scheduled to visit Vienna on June 20-21 to participate in the OPEC worldwide seminar and will discuss these key issues with OPEC Secretary General Sanusi Barkindo and ministers from the 13-nation cartel.

Since early 2017, OPEC and other oil-producing countries have agreed to reduce supply in a bid to bolster oil prices. USA light crude CLc1 was up 40 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $66.76 a barrel. The group is also contending with internal differences: Saudi Arabia favors easing output curbs implemented past year after they succeeded in shrinking a global glut, while Iran, Iraq and Venezuela oppose boosting production.

Iraq faces both technical constraints on boosting supply and a political clash with its Kurdish population that’s impeded exports, and so may have little to gain from any Opec agreement to raise production.

Doesn’t expect disputes with Iran and Venezuela.

China and India have so far this year accounted for about 69 percent of the expected growth in crude oil demand, meaning that what happens in those two behemoths is likely of far more importance to the crude market than what may or may not happen in Vienna.

Trump’s latest tweet on OPEC came shortly after he returned to the White House from a summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

But, with Brent prices up by around 180 percent from their 2016 low, global crude inventories falling, Venezuelan production plummeting and imminent sanctions against Iran, the group may soon end their supply cuts.

According to Citigroup, some increase of the pact’s oil production “looks inevitable”, because it is supported by the two biggest producers.

Brent crude futures, the worldwide benchmark for oil prices, were at $75.65 a barrel at 3.29am GMT, down 23c or 0.3% from their last close.

OPEC is committed, along with 10 non-OPEC producers including Russian Federation, to a 1.8 million b/d cut agreement that is scheduled to run through the end of 2018. “The world economy is feeling some pain from higher oil prices”.

The IEA estimated demand for OPEC’s crude would ease in 2019 to 31.6 million bpd from a forecast 31.9 million bpd this year.

In the United States, rising petrol prices have threatened to blunt other economic headwinds.