Media ignore Saudi Arabia bitch-slapping the Biden administration
Tom KirkmanIndependent Project Manager
Most Western media seems to be studiously ignoring the elephant in the room:
“the political implications of Saudi Arabia bitchslapping the Biden admin just days after it effectively joined the China-Russia-India axes are unmissable even by inbred Deep State types”
So now we wait to see when Saudi Arabia starts selling oil in currencies other than the dollar.
When, not if. Just a matter of time now.
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“With markets still abuzz over Sunday’s OPEC+ decision to cut oil output by over 1.6 million bpd, which was strategic
(the political implications of Saudi Arabia bitchslapping the Biden admin just days after it effectively joined the China-Russia-India axes are unmissable even by inbred Deep State types)
as well as tactical
(i.e., brutalize the oil shorts, a task made easier since energy is now the second most shorted sector after banks, while CTAs are max bearish and will be forced to cover and chase oil higher from here),
below we excerpt from two different perspectives on the OPEC decision, the first one from TS Lombard
(it is their view that the output cut “this will deter short sellers and help oil prices settle higher – much like what December’s surprise BoJ tweak to Yield Curve Control did for the yen” but in the long run “sticky oil prices are more likely to weigh on growth than arrest the broad disinflation process already under way”),
as well as a second one from JPMorgan’s chief commodity strategist Natasha Kaneva who lays out what she thinks is the
“most surprising part of the announcement.”
… The cartel is trying to put a floor under crude prices against the backdrop of rising inventories and downside risks to demand as a US recession looms.
This move is also meant to send a message to speculators: the bearish skew in futures positioning had become particularly pronounced recently, which goes some way to explaining today’s strong knee-jerk price response.
● There is also a political angle to the timing of this announcement, coming shortly after US officials effectively ruled out new crude purchases to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2023, underscoring the souring of US-Saudi relations. …