This week, oil prices reached highs not seen in four years. The international benchmark, Brent, hit $86 per barrel and the U.S. benchmark, WTI jumped to over $76 per barrel. U.S. President Donald Trump has been unrelenting in his public and private pressure on OPEC and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil and lower prices. After all, from his perspective, the increase in prices is a result of his new sanctions against Iran - which Saudi Arabia fully supports - and therefore, Saudi Arabia should deploy its spare capacity to ensure that American consumers don't face undo pain at the pump.
Saudi Arabian oil minister Khalid al Falih tried to reassure markets that Saudi Arabia would increase production but that the market is actually very well supplied. The 9% increase in oil prices over the past 3 months, he said, is the fault of financial speculators, not a lack of supply. He's right, but the market and the speculators didn't believe him.
Soon after, Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman addressed global oil prices in an interview with Bloomberg where he said,
"The request that America made to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries is to be sure that if there is any loss of supply from Iran, that we will supply that. And that happened....So we export as much as 2 barrels for any barrel that disappeared from Iran recently. So we did our job and more. We believe the higher price that we have in the last month, it’s not because of Iran. It’s mostly because of things happening in Canada, and Mexico, Libya, Venezuela and other countries that moved the price a little bit higher."
Source: Saudi Arabia Tells Trump No More Oil
I suspect that the Saudi Arabian oil minister Khalid al Falih may be correct. The higher oil prices seen in the last few weeks may be driven primarily by oil speculators.
[Views of the common man: Speculators are individuals that make fortunes from the blood, sweat and tears of the common man.]