Riyadh: US President Joe Biden’s moves aimed at increasing oil production in the Gulf countries and establishing cooperation to capture the soaring oil prices in the background of Russia-Ukraine invasion have reportedly failed.
On Saturday, Biden attended an important Arab summit of Gulf leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The main objective of Biden’s visit to the Middle East was to ask the oil-rich Gulf countries to increase oil production. The hope was to moderate the rise in US oil prices. But Biden could not get the consensus of the Gulf countries in this regard.
The international news agency reported that the 30-minute talks ended with Saudi Arabia saying it could increase oil production to a maximum of 13 million barrels per day, but did not have the additional capacity to go beyond that.
It is estimated that Saudi Arabia currently produces around 10.2 million barrels of crude oil per day. At the same time, a decision on increasing Saudi oil production will be made only after the OPEC+ meeting on August 3. In addition to the six Gulf countries, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq also participated in the Arab summit.
At the same time, there was no indication in the official statement of the summit that Biden’s discussion did not bear fruit. It is indicated that Saudi Arabia is not interested in a regional security alliance that includes Israel to counter Iran’s threats. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud responded that he was not aware of the discussions regarding the Gulf-Israel defense alliance and that Saudi Arabia was not involved in such discussions.
During the summit, Biden told the Gulf countries that the US will be an active partner in the Middle East. Biden returned to the US on Saturday night after a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia.