When earlier this week reports emerged that Saudi Arabia is striving to keep oil prices in the range of US$70-80 per barrel in a bid to balance its need for higher prices with President Trump’s insistence that oil is kept within reasonable bounds, few must have been surprised. OPEC’s leader and passionate supporter of Trump’s policy towards Iran had few useful moves in an environment featuring fast-rising prices and unhappy consumers from India to the States. It found itself between the rock of high prices, necessary for the Kingdom to pursue the widely advertised economic reforms under its Vision 2030 program, and the hard place of its closest ally’s own agenda, which unsurprisingly involved lower prices at the pump ahead of the midterm elections this November. According to some, the hard place will disappear after the midterm elections. S&P Global Platts senior writer on oil Herman Wang is among […]