It’s not the first time that Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, has spun a war of words on oil short-sellers. In fact, the Saudi oil minister has fought to keep short-sellers at bay for over a year, fiercely cautioning speculators not to bet against him.
Prince Abdulaziz is scheduled to speak on June 16 at the Robin Hood Investors Conference, a red-carpet event that brings together luminaries of the US hedge-fund industry such as Paul Tudor Jones, Ray Dalio and Stanley Druckenmiller, and rising stars like Cathie Wood.
“I want the guys in the trading floors to be as jumpy as possible,” he said after an OPEC+ meeting on September 17. “I’m going to make sure whoever gambles on this market will be ouching like hell.”
For the Saudi Prince, the conference will be an opportunity to talk about long-term trends in energy, just weeks after the International Energy Agency published its controversial road map to slash emissions, urging an end to new oil and gas investments. However, the kingdom is famous for slamming the view that the world should stop investing in oil to protect the climate, calling it a sequel to “La La Land”.
“Why should I take it seriously?” the prince said when asked about the road map at an OPEC+ press briefing earlier this month. Rather than halting investments, Riyadh actually plans to increase the production capacity of its state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, to 13 million barrels a day from 12 million, and the minister hinted that it could go even higher.
The 2021 edition of the Robin Hood conference will also bring other raw materials under the spotlight. For the first time in at least five years, the gathering features a panel on commodity investment, a sign that rising prices for everything from lumber to coal have attracted the attention of Wall Street.
