OPEC’s Meager Oil Supply Hike Shows Limited Powers to Help Biden

Cartel says spare production capacity is ‘severely limited’
Group will add just 100,000 barrels a day in September

WATCH: Amos Hochstein, the White House’s senior adviser for global energy security, says gas and oil prices need to go lower.Source: Bloomberg

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By Grant Smith, Salma El Wardany, and Annmarie Hordern

August 3, 2022 at 5:08 PM UTC

Updated on

August 3, 2022 at 11:01 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

US President Joe Biden returned from Saudi Arabia last month confident that his visit had yielded a promise to cool oil prices. But on Wednesday, OPEC+ offered only a token supply increase and signaled that its powers to help are limited.

The “further steps” from the Saudis on oil production the White House had predicted after Biden’s reconciliatory fist bump with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman turned out to be one of the smallest hikes in OPEC’s six-decade history -- 100,000 barrels a day extra in September from the group and its allies.