The price of an OPEC barrel has been above $100 every single day since February 21, 2011, and it hasn’t even been close to $100 since last October.
But Saudi Arabia is pumping madly away and the price of a barrel has been plummeting in recent weeks, hitting $103,49 last Thursday, the lowest figure for any day in 2012.
Speaking at an event in Australia, Naimi said, “We want a price around $100, that’s what we want. A $100 price is great.”
At that price, gasoline in the United States would be priced well below $4 a gallon, which should quiet drivers and relieve President Obama of a worry before the elections.
But $100 a barrel is still high. And at that price, the Islamic Republic will see little pain unless the volume of oil sales is very seriously throttled by sanctions.
Naimi said production is high enough to deal with any losses of Iranian output. In fact, he said, Saudi Arabia still has 2.5 million barrels a day of unused capacity, a volume that exceeds Iran oil exports that are now believed to be about 1.8 million barrels a day.