On a day that Saudi Arabia jolted the oil market with an output cut it called a “gesture of goodwill,” the kingdom’s de-facto ruler took center stage in a mirrored concert hall, ready to resolve a different crisis.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had presided over the rift with Qatar for more than three years. But now there were just two weeks before a new U.S. leader took office, and President-elect Joe Biden had promised to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.” Combined with threats from Iran and a weakening economy, the prince’s calculation had been shifting: reconciliation looked better than conflict.
So on Tuesday, as television cameras rolled in the northwestern Saudi town of Al Ula, Prince Mohammed hugged Qatar’s ruler and ended the split, casting himself as a peacemaker. Hours later, Saudi Arabia announced it would cut oil production by a million barrels a day to support prices for fellow producers -- a directive that the energy minister said came straight from the crown prince and which sent the shares of U.S. energy companies soaring.
With those moves, Prince Mohammed underscored his public presence with a conciliatory tone - at least for now. Since the 35-year-old prince rose to power in 2015, the world’s largest crude exporter had entered into a series of uncharacteristically high-risk ventures: a war in Yemen, partially cutting ties with Canada, waging a bitter oil price war with Russia, and flirting with a trade war with Turkey.
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