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Trump blasts OPEC, says cartel is keeping oil prices 'artificially very high' and...
CNBC ^ | 4/20/18 | John Melloy

Posted on 04/20/2018 8:01:07 AM PDT by LibWhacker

Trump blasts OPEC, says cartel is keeping oil prices 'artificially very high' and that 'will not be accepted'

"Looks like OPEC is at it again," Trump tweets. "Oil prices are artificially Very High! WTI oil prices hit a three-year high above $69 a barrel this week. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih responds that "Markets should determine price."

President Donald Trump blasted the oil-producing cartel OPEC on Twitter on Friday.

"Looks like OPEC is at it again," he wrote. "With record amounts of Oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships at sea, Oil prices are artificially Very High! No good and will not be accepted!"

Tweet

WTI oil prices hit a three-year high above $69 a barrel this week and were still trading above $68 on Friday. The international benchmark, Brent crude, was above $73 on Friday after also hitting its highest level since November 2014 this week.

The president is likely referring to OPEC's production level agreement with Russia and other producers put in place last year and set to expire at the end of 2018.

There have also been reports lately that Saudi Arabia, the key member of the cartel, wants oil at $80 to $100 a barrel in order to boost the eventual initial public offering of its state oil company, Saudi Aramco.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: oil; opec; trump; tweet
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1 posted on 04/20/2018 8:01:07 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

about all I can say, and this is submitted in completely good faith and very prayerfully too, is that President Trump had better make sure his body guards are alert and watching over his safety very cafefully, if he is really going to bust up the OPEC cartel. He’s taking on a multi-trillion dollar monopoly with many very very dangerous and hostile people involved (like the Saudi dictatorship gang, SorozNazi, etc.)


2 posted on 04/20/2018 8:04:26 AM PDT by faithhopecharity ("Politicans aren't born, they're excreted." -Marcus Tillius Cicero (3 BCE))
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To: LibWhacker

but yes, Go for it, President Trump! MAGA! End OPEC!!
Its at least 40 years overdue, too....
SUPER! (if he can do it...)


3 posted on 04/20/2018 8:05:42 AM PDT by faithhopecharity ("Politicans aren't born, they're excreted." -Marcus Tillius Cicero (3 BCE))
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To: faithhopecharity

“Looks like OPEC is at it again,” he wrote. “With record amounts of Oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships at sea, Oil prices are artificially Very High!”

So nice to have a President who will say what everybody’s thinking.


4 posted on 04/20/2018 8:05:57 AM PDT by LouieFisk
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To: LibWhacker

But that cartel is fraying because Russia, the USA, and several OPEC members are not interested in toeing the OPEC “line.”


5 posted on 04/20/2018 8:06:30 AM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's Economic Cure)
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To: LibWhacker

“...Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih responds that “Markets should determine price.”...”

A captive market does not set prices. They suffer from what the monopolists set as “prices”. Another pant-load from OPEC.


6 posted on 04/20/2018 8:06:41 AM PDT by EagleUSA
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To: LouieFisk

AGREED! And it will be even nicer if President Trump actually does break up the OPEC gang... end it...

)


7 posted on 04/20/2018 8:09:33 AM PDT by faithhopecharity ("Politicans aren't born, they're excreted." -Marcus Tillius Cicero (3 BCE))
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To: LibWhacker

Open up so US capped wells.


8 posted on 04/20/2018 8:09:48 AM PDT by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: LibWhacker

He’s gonna earn himself a lot of street cred by going after them.


9 posted on 04/20/2018 8:12:22 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: faithhopecharity

Yup - lots of garbage to be taken out, both domestic and foreign.


10 posted on 04/20/2018 8:13:53 AM PDT by LouieFisk
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To: LibWhacker

I would venture a guess that the situation in Venezuela has a good deal to do with this.


11 posted on 04/20/2018 8:18:44 AM PDT by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: rjsimmon

Plenty of oil as Trump indicated and it isn’t just foreign countries slowing things down. Speculation baby!


12 posted on 04/20/2018 8:22:26 AM PDT by Lagmeister ( false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders Mark 13:22)
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To: LibWhacker

Saudi Arabia pretty much can set world petroleum prices at any level they might wish, either by increasing or decreasing the amount they put on the market.

By comparison, the other easily manipulated determinants of world petroleum prices are relatively minor. They normally can be offset by Saudi counteractions.

Therefore, most discussions of the issue are basically wasted bandwidth.


13 posted on 04/20/2018 8:30:18 AM PDT by Hawthorn
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To: bmwcyle

That’s exactly right.

People don’t understand that at a certain price, usually cited as sixty bucks or so, the U.S. oil producers attain a certain stability.

If the price goes below, say, forty bucks, large swaths of the companies on the ground shut down.

We lose jobs, R & D, we are (to a degree) at the mercy of the countries whose oil is so cheap to get out of the ground.

It’s far better to have our rigs up and drilling than stacked-out in the weeds.


14 posted on 04/20/2018 8:37:23 AM PDT by Fightin Whitey
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Drill baby Drill!

We’re up to meeting 2/3rds of our needs from domestic production from about 1/3rd a decade ago. We need to get it still higher. We’ve got plenty more sources to drill and frack.


15 posted on 04/20/2018 8:38:27 AM PDT by FLT-bird (..)
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To: FLT-bird

Right now there is enough capped US wells to open. No drilling needed.


16 posted on 04/20/2018 8:52:14 AM PDT by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: LibWhacker

gas is $2.91/gal right now- I fully expect the price to be $3.50/gal by summer’s end


17 posted on 04/20/2018 8:55:28 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: LibWhacker

We are just now reaching a price at which the majority of US production is economic. If Trump succeeds in depressing prices using his bully pulpit (twitter), it is no different from OPEC artificially inflating them. It will also cost thousands of high-paying US jobs that are just now coming back on line.

Let the market decide where the price needs to be. Oil prices will be a function of market demand. OPEC has no control over this because there are plenty of alternative sources of oil. If oil demand is going up that means the economy is improving.

It always dismays me how otherwise conservative people are all for government intervention in the marketplace for energy, but nowhere else.


18 posted on 04/20/2018 9:07:19 AM PDT by con-surf-ative
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To: LibWhacker

It was not that long ago that the Saudis were pushing the price of oil artificially low in order to reduce competition by companies in the US fracking, doing exploration, and even just extracting oil from existing wells.


19 posted on 04/20/2018 10:49:02 AM PDT by unlearner (A war is coming.)
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To: LibWhacker

It was not that long ago that the Saudis were pushing the price of oil artificially low in order to reduce competition by companies in the US fracking, doing exploration, and even just extracting oil from existing wells.


20 posted on 04/20/2018 10:49:02 AM PDT by unlearner (A war is coming.)
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