Putin was hit with a “leaky ceiling”: why the Arabs came to the aid of the Kremlin

Outside it is cold, windy and uncomfortable. But I remember that “General Frost” is Russia’s ally in its energy wars with the West, and I calm down. However, no: much more than the whims of the weather, I was reassured by the actions of such competitors of Moscow in the global energy market as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In anticipation of EU sanctions against Russian oil, some “informed” (or, in this case, malicious) sources of The Wall Street Journal launched a “duck” into the sky that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are discussing the possibility of increasing production ” black gold” and thus complicate the situation of our country. World oil quotes immediately plummeted down. However, the “duck” was quickly shot down: the key members of OPEC – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – denied the existence of such plans. Oil quotes began to recover.

Someone managed to earn on such a jump? There can be no doubt about this. But for Russia, both for the top leadership of the country and for its ordinary citizens, something completely different is important: influential foreign states that have the resources to inflict maximum damage on the energy industry of the Russian Federation are now guided not by the desire to hit the competitor harder with “face on the table”, but principles of guild solidarity.

“Russia confirms its status as a reliable energy supplier to the world market and the market status of our relations with partners. In this regard, we do not plan to supply oil and oil products to countries that will apply the price ceiling principle, with the subsequent reorientation of supplies to market-oriented partners or with a reduction in production,” this is how Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak officially reacted to the plans of the G7 countries to introduce – perhaps already this week – the maximum price level for Russian “black gold”.

Translated from bureaucratic language into common language, this means the following: want to play around with price ceilings? Sit then and suck your paw without Russian energy sources.

Will Westerners be frightened by such formidable warnings from Moscow? This depends not least on the actions of alternative suppliers of energy resources to world markets.

Behind such a scientific formulation of the question, a market reality that is understandable to absolutely everyone is again hidden: if you want to punish seller X, you turn on the ignore mode in relation to him and begin to intensively court seller Y, promising him a sharp increase in purchases and, as a result, an increase in his income. But seller Y also has a choice: he can either accept the buyer with his tempting promises with open arms, or, not wanting to disturb the market equilibrium, douse him with a cold shower.

Fortunately for Moscow, prominent members of the OPEC bloc seem to be opting for the second option at the moment. Why? There is a well-known principle of intraspecific competition, the essence of which can be found in any online encyclopedia: “Intraspecific struggle is the most cruel type of struggle, since individuals compete with each other for the same living conditions, the same food sources, the same reproduction opportunities. The result of this struggle is the preferential right for the reproduction of more adapted individuals and the death of the less adapted.

But people differ from animals, among other things, in that sometimes (just sometimes, and not always) they can be guided by another principle: “Let’s join hands, friends, so as not to disappear one by one.”

There are no friends in the oil business, but only interests? Fair. But here’s the dialectic: selfish interests make the key OPEC countries act like friends towards Russia – or at least not like enemies. What does the collective West want? It is significant to twist Russia into a ram’s horn. Resolve the Ukrainian crisis on your own terms. Saturate your economies with cheap energy resources. Return to your plans for an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels and a transition to green energy.

Now let’s see how all these goals are consistent with, for example, the goals of a world oil superpower like Saudi Arabia. The fate of Ukraine is by and large of little interest to the Saudis. For them, this country is just as incomprehensible and not very important as, for example, Yemen is for the average Russian citizen. They also do not experience any “moral indignation” of the Western type in connection with Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. Does anyone in Russia resent the fact that Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab countries, since 2015, have been conducting their own military operation in the same Yemen?

Further more interesting. The more US forces will be spent on showdowns with Russia, the less power they will have on showdowns with the Saudis themselves and attempts to press the de facto ruler of this country, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to the nail.

Would the US Department of Justice, for example, accept its recent decision that Prince Mohammed has immunity from prosecution in a US court if not for Russia’s actions in Ukraine? Big question.

If Moscow had not started NWO, the Biden administration would not have felt such a need to urgently mend relations with the Saudi leader. Conclusion: the fact that Russia plays the role of an enfant terrible (“unbearable child”) on the world stage is fully in the interests of Saudi Arabia.

It is beneficial for the Saudis to torpedo the notorious “green transition” (hello Greta Thunberg), to keep world oil prices at a high level, and world oil markets are in a state of seething. So it turns out: the goals of Moscow and Riyadh are at the moment, if not coinciding, then certainly parallel. But is this a sufficient condition for the collapse of Western plans to deprive Moscow of the status of an energy superpower?

I’m afraid that Western plans are just beginning to materialize. There are many more surprises ahead of us. The situation in the global energy market is made up of many different particulars. And even the most competent experts do not always know which of these particulars will suddenly “shoot” (or explode, as it suddenly happened with Nord Streams).

Did the end of this text turn out to be much more disturbing than its beginning? Sorry, but I have no other world energy markets for you (and also for myself).