Covid-19: Russia, Saudi to cut oil output if US also does; US non-committal

Saudi Arabia, Russia and allied oil producers would agree to deep cuts to their crude output at talks this week only if the United States and several others join in with curbs to help prop up prices that have been hammered by the coronavirus crisis.

However, the US Department of Energy said in a statement on Tuesday that US output was already falling without government action, in line with the White House’s insistence that it would not intervene in private markets. That decline, however, would take place slowly, over the course of the next two years.

Global oil demand has dropped by as much as 30 per cent, or about 30 million barrels per day (bpd), as measures to reduce the spread of the virus have caused a crash in demand for aviation turbine fuel (ATF), petrol and diesel.