Saudi Arabia wants an oil price of $100

Saudi Arabia oil minister Khalid al-Falih and Russian energy minister Alexander Novak participated in a joint conference in Riyadh.
It became clear that the leading oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, would have been happy with a rise in the price of oil to 80, and why not even to $100 a barrel. This was accepted by investors and analysts as a sign that we will not see a change in OPEC's production constraints soon.
OPEC, together with Russia and several other leading manufacturers, began to jointly reduce oil production in January 2017 in an attempt to stabilize the cost of raw materials. They extended their agreement by the end of this year.
Recently, however, speculation is increasingly becoming among oil analysts that these measures will continue next year.
Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has become one of the main supporters of restrictive measures in the industry that will lead to a rise in the price of oil.

Do low prices of oil bother Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia may not be as worried about low oil prices as most investors would expect.
Saudits play a longer-term game, comment analysts at RBC Capital Markets in a letter to the institution's clients. Key elements of the country's plans to differentiate its dependence on oil prices on international markets include events this year.
Among them are the plans for the national oil company to become public. According to experts, the company's market valuation could amount to about $2 trillion.
According to analysts, his may explain in part the lack of urgency regarding the measures to be taken to normalize the price of oil.
In fact, Saudi Arabia may even be worried about a potential oil price rebound this year, which could re-inflate production, by boosting production by US shale makers.
The low oil price is somewhat good for Saudi Arabia because it puts US manufacturers on the "razor edge," many of which may face bankruptcy if low prices last longer at levels below 50 dollars and especially around 40.
Brent lost more than 15 percent since the beginning of the year, while US crude oil fell by 14.6 percent. Both types of oil rose by more than 3% over the past week. To a great extent, oil prices have been backed by US oil reserves for the past week.