Failure of the Doha talks regarding oil

[Madali]

A quick summary, guys, regarding the Doha talks in my own words. There are lots of articles on it.

There was supposed to an agreement between oil producing countries to freeze oil production. Iran had refused the measure since day 1, because our oil has still not reached pre-sanctions era, while other countries are at an all time high.

Generally, the freeze was supposedly going to be more symbolic rather than an actual effect on the oil supply, since countries weren't REDUCING their oil output. From what I understood, most countries couldn't even really increase by much anymore, so they were all fine with the freeze. This gesture was supposed to support a oil price increase, through it's symbolic gesture of corporation among oil producing countries. The draft was prepared and countries went to Doha to sign it.

But apparently, early Sunday morning, the delegation from Saudi received a call from Riyadh giving them a new order that wasn't not planned. They supposedly were told not to sign the agreement unless Iran agrees to it. Since Iran did not send a delegation, the talks were derailed.

This is interesting to me because I wonder what happened at the last minute, or what was Riyadh's objective. Since the agreement was known among the members before hand, why did Riyadh change its mind at the last minute? This hurts them diplomatically among the rest of the members, who are faulting KSA for the price dip in the last 2 days. But did Riyadh change its mind or was it preplanned? What is KSA gaining that is giving them more advantage than the political backlash? Was it to present itself in a more powerful manner, to prove to the members and the world that oil price policies begin and end with them? Or was it actually unplanned, and internal power struggle changed the policies at the last minute? Or maybe since there is a Kuwait strike currently (oil production has fallen by half in Kuwait due to the strikes), KSA was concerned that the agreement combined with the Kuwait strike would have shot the prices higher than they want (which would support US shale companies & bolster Iran economy)?

Interesting development. I would love to know what the Oil Ministers discussed with their bosses when they all went back to their countries.

 

[raptor22]

A quick summary, guys, regarding the Doha talks in my own words. There are lots of articles on it.

There was supposed to an agreement between oil producing countries to freeze oil production. Iran had refused the measure since day 1, because our oil has still not reached pre-sanctions era, while other countries are at an all time high.

Generally, the freeze was supposedly going to be more symbolic rather than an actual effect on the oil supply, since countries weren't REDUCING their oil output. From what I understood, most countries couldn't even really increase by much anymore, so they were all fine with the freeze. This gesture was supposed to support a oil price increase, through it's symbolic gesture of corporation among oil producing countries. The draft was prepared and countries went to Doha to sign it.

But apparently, early Sunday morning, the delegation from Saudi received a call from Riyadh giving them a new order that wasn't not planned. They supposedly were told not to sign the agreement unless Iran agrees to it. Since Iran did not send a delegation, the talks were derailed.

This is interesting to me because I wonder what happened at the last minute, or what was Riyadh's objective. Since the agreement was known among the members before hand, why did Riyadh change its mind at the last minute? This hurts them diplomatically among the rest of the members, who are faulting KSA for the price dip in the last 2 days. But did Riyadh change its mind or was it preplanned? What is KSA gaining that is giving them more advantage than the political backlash? Was it to present itself in a more powerful manner, to prove to the members and the world that oil price policies begin and end with them? Or was it actually unplanned, and internal power struggle changed the policies at the last minute? Or maybe since there is a Kuwait strike currently (oil production has fallen by half in Kuwait due to the strikes), KSA was concerned that the agreement combined with the Kuwait strike would have shot the prices higher than they want (which would support US shale companies & bolster Iran economy)?

Interesting development. I would love to know what the Oil Ministers discussed with their bosses when they all went back to their countries.

I think Saudis wanted 2 things first of all higher oil prices + capping Iran oil and its share market hence Iran would have less petrodollar while they keep production in high level . Freeze just means a new form of sanction on Iran , before we couldn't sell due to the sanctions now we shouldn't sell it due to low oil prices which is ipso facto not fair 'cause Iran would lose its share markets and more consumers while it didn't have any role in current plunge in oil revenue of producers in fact Iran just has 1.5 % of total oil market in the world......
If Iran would have accepted the freeze proposal , it had sanctioned itself while some countries produce more than their shares right now and if Iran wouldn't have agreed upon such a plan all blame had lain on Iran ... that's why Saudis' decision was tied to Iran's ...