Donald Trump tweets rock oil prices

Oil prices soared on Thursday after tweets from Donald Trump promising a reduction in Russian and Saudi production to rebalance a black gold market devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In New York, WTI US barrel for May rose nearly 25%, or $ 5.1, to $ 25.32. The price of a barrel of Brent North Sea for delivery in June, reference to London, jumped 21%, or 5.2 dollars, to 29.94 dollars.

For both barrels, this was the largest percentage increase over a session in their history. Brent even touched for a moment the 50% increase compared to the previous day’s closing and that of WTI 35%.

The White House tenant took investors by surprise when he explained via Twitter “hope and expect” that the two countries will reduce their production “by about 10 million barrels, and perhaps much more”, before adding that “it could even go up to 15 million barrels”, without however providing details on these figures.

A fall of such magnitude would represent colossal cuts for the second and third producers of black gold in the world, behind the United States: in February, Russia produced 10.7 million barrels per day and Saudi Arabia 9 , 8 million barrels per day, according to data from OPEC. Ryad recently announced plans to boost production to more than 12 million barrels a day in April.

The Kremlin denies

First shadow on the board, Donald Trump clarified that his announcement follows an interview with “(his) friend MBS (Crown Prince) of Saudi Arabia, who spoke with President Putin”, a point that the Kremlin immediately denied .

“No, there was no (such) conversation,” Russian Presidency spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax, adding that “no, for the moment” no talks were scheduled. scheduled between the Russian President and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).