UK’s Johnson calls for joint effort on energy market security in UAE talks

Agencies | London

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stressed the need to work together to stabilise global energy markets in talks with United Arab Emirates’ Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan yesterday, Johnson’s office said.

Johnson met the prince on the first stop of a visit to the Gulf as part of efforts to secure more oil supplies and increase pressure on President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He was due in Saudi Arabia later on Wednesday.

“The world must wean itself off Russian hydrocarbons and starve Putin’s addiction to oil and gas,” Johnson said before his meetings.

“Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are key international partners in that effort.”

The group has been raising output gradually each month by 400,000 barrels a day.

Johnson “set out his deep concerns about the chaos unleashed by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and stressed the importance of working together to improve stability in the global energy market”, his office said in a statement.

Johnson and the crown prince also agreed on the need to bolster security, defence and intelligence cooperation to counter threats including from Houthi forces who have fought a lengthy conflict in Yemen against Saudi and UAE forces.

Three million barrels of Russian oil, products could be shut in next month: IEA

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday that three million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian oil and products may not find their way to market beginning in April in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

Rising commodity prices and sanctions on Russia “are expected to appreciably depress global economic growth” and impact inflation, said the Paris-based IEA, offering a bleak picture of undersupply and uncertainty for the oil market.

It was the first monthly report on oil from the IEA, which represents 31 mostly industrialised nations but not Russia, since Russia’s invasion of its neighbour briefly sent Brent crude to nearly $140 a barrel.

“We see a reduction in total (Russian) exports of 2.5 million bpd, of which crude accounts for 1.5 million bpd and products 1 million bpd,” the IEA said in its monthly oil report.

Additionally, it projected lower Russian domestic demand for oil products.

Russia exports 7 million to 8 million barrels of crude and products daily.

The IEA lowered its forecast for world oil demand for the second to fourth quarters of 2022 by 1.3 million bpd.

For the full year, it cut its growth forecast by 950,000 bpd to 2.1 million bpd for an average of 99.7 million bpd.