Biden Administration Pushes Oil Producers to Keep Production High

Biden administration officials have spent more than a week in discussions with their counterparts from oil-producing countries in the Middle East, seeking to minimize production cuts by OPEC Plus, the group led by Saudi Arabia, in an effort to keep global oil prices from rising drastically.

On Wednesday, OPEC Plus announced a production cut of two million barrels a day.

The engagement ahead of the latest meeting of OPEC Plus included outreach by top officials from the State Department, Treasury Department and the National Security Council. Officials familiar with the calls say the efforts have not been a departure from the administration’s efforts over the past year to push oil producers to keep production levels high after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has roiled global markets.

“We are always talking to all producers and consumers, including OPEC Plus partners,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. “That’s been the case for decades and across bipartisan administrations, including this one. We’ve been clear that energy supply should meet demand to support economic growth and lower prices for consumers around the world, and we will continue to talk with our partners about that.”

The administration officials have been reminding their counterparts that the United States plans to boost global oil demand in the near future by purchasing oil at fixed prices in order to refill the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Mr. Biden began releasing one million barrels per day from the reserve in March in an effort to boost oil supplies and limit prices. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters this week that the administration had no plans to continue the releases after the end of the month, when the effort is scheduled to expire.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/us/politics/biden-oil-opec.html