Riyadh, Saudi Arabia— Saudi Arabia has denied allegations that the kingdom had a role in the high US gas prices, and instead said that the inadequate refining capacity in the US was driving the prices high.
Speaking to a US media outlet, Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said: “Saudi Arabia does not politicize oil or oil decisions. Oil is not a weapon… we look at oil as a commodity and we look at all this is important to the global economy in which we have a huge stake.”
“The idea that Saudi Arabia would do that would do this to harm the US or to be in any way politically involved is absolutely not correct at all. With due respect the reason you have high prices in the United States is because you have a refining shortage that has been in existence for more than 20 years, you haven’t built refineries in decades.”
US gasoline prices rose sharply early this year due to high demand and tight global refining supplies, but began to drop after peaking in June. The national average is now up 20 cents from its mid-September lows of $3.67 a gallon, largely driven by gains in the Midwest and West Coast.
US oil refiners were using 91 percent of their capacity as of early October, but overall US refining capacity has declined since the coronavirus pandemic crushed demand in early 2020, industry estimates show.
“You have a number of refineries in the Midwest that were shut down. It is a result of this shortage of refining capacity that you have a shortage of gasoline and increase in the price of gasoline, it has nothing to do with the fundamentals of crude oil supply and demand,” Al-Jubeir explained.
Al-Jubeir added that OPEC member nations, plus Russia, were “very committed to ensuring stability in the oil markets to the benefit of consumers and producers.”
“Over the past year when we saw shortages, we increased our all production gradually. Now, we are seeing – we meaning the 22 countries that make up OPEC plus – we’re seeing shortages, we are seeing headwinds in terms of geopolitics, we’re seeing headwinds in terms of growth rates and slowdown in economies throughout the world and we want to make sure that we act in a pre-emptive fashion to ensure that we don’t have a collapse of the energy markets, which would be detrimental not only to producers but also to consumers and the global economy,” he said, after facing criticisms particularly from US about the group’s decision to oil production from November.