What Saudi Arabia and Russia do next
The Opec+ heavyweights underestimated Covid-19’s impact on demand. It may be too late for them to staunch the bleeding
“Russia and Saudi Arabia will have to talk to each other—this [situation] is much more dramatic than they expected two weeks ago.” So says Per Magnus Nysveen, head of analysis at Oslo-based consultancy Rystad Energy. But it remains doubtful whether the erstwhile Opec+ partners, having released the genie from the bottle, can put it back in. “Both the NOCs and the IOCs are still in the shock phase. They do not know what to do,” says Nysveen. “They are almost behaving just as they have done before. And they have had some scope to do so before all storage is filled up. “They are only now thinking: what should we do? They are taking some practical measures, e.g. taking as many platforms as they c
Also in this section
13 March 2026
Brussels is again weighing a cap on gas prices amid the Hormuz crisis, but the measure could backfire by deterring the LNG cargoes Europe urgently needs
12 March 2026
Emergency oil stocks provide a last line of defence to oil market shocks, so the IEA’s unprecedented 400m bl release represents something of a double-edged sword
12 March 2026
LPG could rapidly expand access to clean cooking across Africa and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from indoor air pollution each year, but infrastructure shortages and regulatory barriers are slowing investment and market growth
11 March 2026
Missiles over Dubai and disruption in Hormuz are testing the emirate’s reputation—and shaking the energy hub at the centre of the Gulf economy
