US President Donald Trump is set to meet with the chief executives of major oil producers in the US to discuss possible tariffs on Saudi oil, media reports said.
He will hold a meeting with the CEOs from Exxon, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Devon Energy, Phillips 66, Energy Transfer Partners and former Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm at the White House.
The meeting comes as US oil producers struggle to breakeven on the back of tumbling crude prices, which is a result of the oil price war started by Saudi Arabia led OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).
Reportedly, the topics to be discussed in this meeting are tariffs on Saudi Arabian oil imports and waivers on rules about transporting oil between US ports. If those rules were waived, ships could take oil products around the country more easily, competing more effectively with the flood of Saudi imports now being shipped into the country.
With regard to the oil price war between OPEC and Russia, US President Donald Trump told the media in a White House briefing, “I have confidence in both that they’ll be able to work it out. The two countries are engaged in a price war. Trump also said he’d meet with oil-industry chief executives, which the Wall Street Journal reported would happen Friday. “We don’t want to lose our great oil companies.”
Earlier this week, US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette discussed the market with the Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak.
Global oil prices plunged drastically earlier this month as Saudi Arabia, which is the world’s top oil exporter slashed oil prices by 10 percent. Saudi Arabia decided to slash oil prices after negotiations between OPEC and Russia collapsed with regard to reducing production due to the coronavirus crisis.
Global oil prices plunged as much as 30 percent since then, highest in the last two decades.