Much has been made of President Vladimir Putin’s recent claim that crude oil prices are acceptable at present levels, and the Russian economy could even weather $40 per barrel. Many oil market “tea leaf readers” have taken this to mean Putin has caved to the demands of his country’s oil oligarchs and Russia is unlikely to agree to an extension of last December’s OPEC+ deal at the scheduled mid-year meeting. In reality, the crafty old Russian fox is probably just posturing to get a better deal for his country. The Kremlin needs higher crude prices than Putin claims for economic and geopolitical reasons. Why else would his government agree to two previous rounds of OPEC+ cuts when crude prices were relatively low? But Saudi Arabia has only itself to blame for Russia’s more assertive bargaining position this time around, having fallen back to its traditional swing producer role so […]