Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, has said that Saudi Arabia does not politicise oil or oil decisions and that high energy costs are instead largely due to insufficient refining capacity in the US.
“Saudi Arabia does not politicise oil or oil decisions. Oil is not a weapon, it’s not a fighter tank, you can’t shoot it or do anything with it,” Al-Jubeir said in an interview with Fox News.
He added, “We look at oil as a commodity and we look at all this is important to the global economy in which we have a huge stake.”
US oil refiners were using 91% of their capacity as of early October, but overall US refining capacity has declined 2020, according to industry estimates.
“You have a number of refineries in the Midwest that were shut down. It is a result of this shortage of refining capacity that you have a shortage of gasoline and increase in the price of gasoline, it has nothing to do with the fundamentals of crude oil supply and demand,” Al-Jubeir noted.
Last week, OPEC+, agreed to lower their crude oil production by two million barrels per day, which is the highest output cut since the pandemic.
While Saudi Arabia said the reduction was necessary to respond to the West’s interest rate hike and the weak global economy, US has blamed the Kingdom for siding with Russia.
Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senate majority leader, said: “What Saudi Arabia did to help [Russian president Vladimir] Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans.”
Brushing off allegations, Al-Jubeir added that OPEC member nations, plus Russia, were “very committed to ensuring stability in the oil markets to the benefit of consumers and producers.”
“The idea that Saudi Arabia would do that would do this to harm the US or to be in any way politically involved is absolutely not correct at all. With due respect the reason you have high prices in the United States is because you have a refining shortage that has been in existence for more than 20 years, you haven’t built refineries in decades,” Al-Jubeir noted.
Al-Jubeir also downplayed speculations that oil prices would surge because of OPEC+’s production cuts.
“The decision was unanimous. We saw… a reduction in the demand for crude oil going forward and there were multiple factors that would have an impact on the supply/demand fundamentals and we wanted to make sure that we were preemptive or proactive and that we avert a potential collapse of the energy markets that would not benefit consumers or producers.”
He added, “We will continue to watch the situation carefully as we have over the past year and we will determine what the market needs. And we will make decisions in accord with that as we have not only over the past year, but over the past decades.”
