Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s order to flood oil markets three years ago during a dispute with Russia ultimately gave the kingdom confidence to be more assertive in shaping OPEC+’s policies, the energy minister said in a recent TV interview.
In March 2020, the cartel’s leader was at an impasse with Moscow: Riyadh wanted to cut output in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the Kremlin wanted to wait, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said as part of a documentary series aired by Saudi-owned MBC Group.
When the minister told the crown prince that the cartel hadn’t reached an agreement on quotas, the kingdom’s de facto ruler said Saudi Arabia should hit its “maximum production capacity.”
“I actually panicked,” the minister said during the episode titled OPEC Leadership. “I won’t lie about how I was during that moment.”
