For most of the last six years, the leaders of Russia and Saudi Arabia worked with each other to control the global oil market during times of war, pandemic and dizzying price gyrations.
But their alliance appears to be straining in ways that could help the Biden administration, which was eager to head off another significant jump in energy prices just ahead of secretary of state Antony J. Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia this week.
At last weekend’s meeting of Opec Plus, the oil cartel that the two countries lead, Saudi Arabia and Russia quietly parted ways.
