Around 11:25 a.m., Brent gained 0.34% to $78.56 and WTI gained 0.32% to $74.86.
Oil prices stabilize on Friday, with the market estimating that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will not agree to increase production to lower prices, despite pressure from Donald Trump.
“It is very unlikely that Trump will win the standoff with Mohammed bin Salman,” the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, considers Bjarne Schieldrop, analyst at SEB.
OPEC and its allies (OPEC+) have a great influence on the price of oil. Its members agree to adjust their production in order to maintain their profits in the long term.
Since the end of 2022, it has been organizing a strategy to reduce supply and currently has an unexploited production capacity of nearly six million barrels per day.
During an online speech Thursday to an audience of big bosses at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr. Trump declared that he would “ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to lower the cost of oil” and therefore call into question this strategy.
Its stated objective is to lower prices in order to fight inflation and increase the purchasing power of Americans.
Prices immediately fell following his declaration, but the effect of the announcement faded on Friday because it is “not unusual for Trump to call on OPEC+ to produce more oil”, underlines the AFP Jorge Leon of Rystad Energy.
“He had already asked Saudi Arabia to increase its production during his first mandate,” continues the analyst.
-Riyadh “needs oil at $80 per barrel more than ever,” believes Bjarne Schieldrop, particularly to finance its “Saudi Vision 2030” plan, which should allow it to diversify its sources of income.
In addition, American producers also need high prices to respond to the American president’s demand to “drill at all costs”, without which these new drillings will not be profitable.
In total, “Trump will have to make a choice between producing more and drastically reducing prices,” reasons Jorge Leon.
The American president announced during his inauguration his intention to increase American oil and gas production to “fill strategic reserves” and “export American energy throughout the world”.
Notably, he lifted restrictions on oil projects in Alaska while revoking the Biden administration’s green energy goals.
Around 11:25 a.m. in Paris, the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in March, rose 0.34% to $78.56.
Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, for delivery the same month, gained 0.32% to $74.86.
