From dissatisfaction at the price of oil to geopolitics and the need for economic protection, there are a number of factors involved in the surprise announcement.
The Biden administration had previously promised the Saudis it would replenish the SPR, but said last week it would now not be doing so. That will have angered the Saudis, who will also be keen to use this incident as an opportunity to remind the US of its pricing power in the crude market, something which has at various times during the last decade appeared to be threatened by US shale producers.A fourth, related, factor is geopolitics.
This can be seen as the continuation of a trend: Mr Biden had been critical of Riyadh even before he was elected president and is under pressure from many in his party to dial down the relationship with the Saudis even to the point of withholding arms sales.Mr Biden sought to patch things up with a visit to the kingdom in July last year, during which he greeted Crown Prince Mohammed with a fist bump - only for OPEC to push through a production cut of two million barrels per day in October.
Another is that this production cut will leave global demand and supply out of kilter for the second half of the year. Both Goldman and JP Morgan are now forecasting that crude could trade at $90 a barrel between now and the end of the year. UBS, meanwhile, thinks prices could go to $100.
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