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WASHINGTON: Surging crude oil prices should make Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi’s upcoming annual trip to Washington more tense than last year’s visit, which featured so much back-slapping that some government officials called it ‘the love-fest’.
Mr Naimi returns next week to discuss world oil markets with US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and other administration officials. Recent record crude oil prices over $75 a barrel could make for an awkward photo opportunity when Mr Naimi, representing the globe’s top oil exporter, stands next to Mr Bodman, energy chief for the world’s biggest oil guzzler.
Saudi officials, who last year unveiled a $50 billion plan to expand oil output, also are still smarting from President George Bush’s pledge in January to cut US imports from the Middle East.
“Bodman will definitely have some explaining to do, like why does the US want the Saudis spend $50 billion to pump new oil that the United States doesn’t want?” said David Goldwyn, an energy consultant and former government official.
BLINDSIDED: Riyadh’s new Ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al Faisal, was ‘totally blindsided’ as he sat in Congress’ visitors gallery for Mr Bush’s State of the Union speech, an industry official said. White House political advisers added the remarks about cutting oil imports hours before Mr Bush spoke.
At a high-profile industry conference in Houston days later, MR Naimi wryly dismissed Mr Bush’s remarks, and sources in Saudi Arabia see politics at play.
“It’s more just a political thing,” said Nawaf Obaid, a security adviser to the Saudi government. “There’s really not much to it.”
US officials say cutting reliance on Middle East oil means more Saudi supply will be available elsewhere.
“It is in (the Saudis’) interest that we diversify — it expands the longevity of their own resources,” said Karen Harbert, assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the Energy Department.
Cutting Middle East oil imports won’t change things much unless US consumers curb their oil thirst, Mr Obaid said.
“If the US doesn’t ultimately decrease its consumption of oil it’s still going to be as beholden to Middle East and Saudi crude,” Mr Obaid said.
Saudi Arabia is setting its sights increasingly on China as its primary oil export market, Mr Obaid said. Saudi shipments to China could eclipse its exports to the United States in 2011, he said.—Reuters
