Julian Lee, Columnist

Trump and His Gulf Friends Win Big in OPEC Deal

Saudi Arabia is set to gain market share from Venezuela and Iran.

June 22, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC

Julian Lee is an oil strategist for Bloomberg. Previously, he was a senior analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.

More oil, you say?
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OPEC’s decision to “strive” to bring compliance with their output deal to 100 percent means that more oil will hit the market in coming weeks. And most of that oil will come from Saudi Arabia at the expense of Venezuela and Iran. That's a big win for President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

As I noted earlier this week, a compromise at this OPEC meeting would require the group to abandon individual output targets and Iran to cede market share to Saudi Arabia. That’s precisely what has happened, even if no OPEC oil minister will admit it in public.