helima croft commodities strategist at rbc capital markets llc and a former cia analystover the last few months opec has actually increased output as demand recovers but riyadh has made sure the cartel boosted production more slowly than demand recovered in the process draining global inventories and lifting pricesinventories of crude and refined oil product in industrialized countries have fallen now below 28 billion barrels hitting their lowest level since early 2015 the world oil market remains tight by all measures the agency said in novemberstill biden has continued to refuse to speak to the crown prince widely known as mbs despite his desire for lower oil prices to bring down inflation the refusal has continued even after saudi arabia announced its most ambitious green target ever saying it will reach netzero emissions by 2060whatever the us is offering mbs in return it is just not enough to persuade him to pump more oil said neil quilliam associate fellow in the middle east and north africa program at the londonbased think tank chatham house the us has to offer something big to get the saudis to change course and that must include a bilateral meeting between biden and mbsbut prince mohammed hasnt just rebuffed its american ally riyadh has argued that opec is already adding enough crude into the market in the process rejecting pleas from china india and japan for more oil president biden and his chinese counterpart xi jinping discussed the problem in november during a virtual summit and agreed to work together to stabilize energy marketsthe following week the us was joined by japan india south korea and the uk in a coordinated release of reserves china is expected to follow suitsaudi officials paint a different version of the energy landscape while the oil market is tight today it will loosen significantly from january onward they argue higher prices are driven by market fundamentals and the biggest shortage is for natural gas and coal oil is not the problem prince abdulaziz the energy minister said after the last opec virtual meeting in november the problem is the energy complex is going through havoc and hellprince abdulaziz will chair an opec virtual meeting next week which will deliver the cartels response to bidens use of the strategic petroleum reserve a lot will depend on whether oil keeps rising beyond 80 a barrel but opec can counteract the release by delaying further output hikesin october the whos who of global finance gathered at the ritz carlton hotel in riyadh granting prince mohammed a standing ovation it was the very same hotel that saudi authorities turned four years ago into a makeshift prison when it launched what it described as an anti corruption drive that ensnared some of the countrys wealthiest people the investment summit which promotes the saudi wealth fund as a global dealmaker comes at a time when riyadh is recycling its newly found oil wealth into trophy assets overseas the pif as the fund is known