2020年4月3日，在DC首都华盛顿，唐纳德·特朗普在白宫内阁会议室会见能源行业的首席执行官。石油公司受到冠状病毒影响以及俄罗斯和沙特阿拉伯在石油市场造成的外国压力的负面影响。
对于美国石油行业来说，它一直热切期待的电话终于在4月2日打来了。这是近一个月来，唐纳德·特朗普总统第一次在白宫拿起电话，与沙特阿拉伯王储兼该国事实上的统治者穆罕默德·本·萨尔曼通话。在此前的三周里，世界三大石油生产国中的两个——沙特和俄罗斯——在3月初未能就减产达成协议后，陷入了一场毁灭性的价格战。
这一决定是由王储做出的，他否决了他的哥哥，利雅得的能源部长，在全球市场引发了毁灭性的连锁反应。在冠状病毒导致全球需求骤降之际，两家生产商增加的他们的生产:石油价格暴跌，给美国石油工业带来巨大破坏。从经济角度来说，这场价格战是不合理的，因为沙特人需要每桶70美元来为他们国家复杂的社会安全网提供资金。俄罗斯人只需要40美元来履行他们的预算义务。这种非理性加剧了美国股市，尤其是信贷市场的紧张情绪。美国页岩生产商需要每桶约40美元才能盈利，他们将面临未来30个月到期的680亿美元债务。
过去一个月，特朗普政府已经确信俄罗斯不是沙特的唯一目标。官员们认为，利雅得还想消灭许多美国页岩生产商，过去十年来，美国页岩生产商的出现使美国从去年开始成为全球领先的石油生产商。特朗普经常吹嘘美国正在成为一个能源“超级大国”那现在非常危险。据一位熟悉该电话的白宫官员称，特朗普对本·萨尔曼彬彬有礼，但态度坚决，告诉他“适可而止”
美国对利雅得有巨大的影响力。华盛顿是沙特王国的最终安全保证人，几十年来一直有效地保持着沙特王室的权力。此外，王储在华盛顿的盟友越来越少。2018年《华盛顿邮报》专栏作家贾迈勒·哈肖吉被杀，以及沙特在也门对伊朗代理人发动的不受欢迎的战争，疏远了国会山的传统盟友。“这年头他不可能在镇上有很多晚餐约会，”约翰·哈纳说，他是一名长期的沙特观察家，也是华盛顿智库捍卫民主基金会的高级顾问。
第二天，当特朗普与来自石油行业的CEOS会面时，沙特做出了回应。他们表示，将支持每天至少减产600万桶，并将在周一与欧佩克其他成员国和俄罗斯讨论这些可能的减产。(莫斯科不是欧佩克的正式成员。普京发表声明说，他可以忍受每桶42美元的油价。油价因此飙升，周五上涨15%，至每桶34.00美元以上。年初原油价格为每桶65美元，本周早些时候跌至20美元。
然而，正如特朗普和石油高管上周五讨论的那样，沙特和俄罗斯减产的前景是有条件的。沙特和俄罗斯希望美国生产商参与市场管理。莫斯科表示，沙特-欧佩克-俄罗斯联盟希望美国以及包括加拿大和巴西在内的较小产油国加入到削减日产量1000万桶的行列中来。特朗普政府官员表示，一些美国页岩生产商愿意合作，以试图推高价格。
美国石油巨头——埃克森、雪佛龙、康菲石油公司——犹豫不决。协调减产引发了明显的反垄断问题，特别是因为任何全球减产努力都需要欧洲主要公司的参与:英国石油公司、荷兰皇家壳牌公司和法国巨头道达尔公司。能源分析师表示，司法部将需要承诺在大公司合作之前，将目光转向别处。此外，凭借稳健的资产负债表，他们无疑希望从过度杠杆化的页岩生产商那里获得不良资产。
星期五，白宫的所有东西都摆在桌子上。高管们讨论了美国减产的可能性，并讨论了如果沙特不坚持自己的减产，特朗普是否应该对沙特石油进口征收关税。“每个人都明白这是一场危机，在这一点上没有分歧，”前大陆资源公司首席执行官、特朗普的非正式顾问哈罗德·哈姆(Harold Hamm)表示。
IHT Markit副董事长、长期石油分析师丹尼尔·耶金(Daniel Yergin)表示，全球需求崩溃在现代是前所未有的。但当前的一些危机反映了过去的行业紧急情况。
本周早些时候，两个总部位于德克萨斯州的页岩生产商，先锋自然资源公司和欧芹能源公司，给管理该州石油工业的德克萨斯州铁路委员会写了一封信，要求该委员会举行听证会，希望能在该州设定生产配额。
它以前也这样做过。在一个需求崩溃和大量生产过剩的时代，该州州长实际上派出了数千名武装国民警卫队和德州游骑兵来关闭东德州的生产。铁路委员会发布了“支持配给的命令”，由州警执行。那一年是1931年，也就是后来被称为大萧条的两年后。
TRUMP FINALLY TELLS SAUDIS, 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH' AS OIL PRICE WAR DEVASTATES U.S. PRODUCERS, MARKETS
Donald Trump meeting with energy sector CEOs in the Cabinet Room of the White House April 3, 2020 in Washington, DC. Oil companies have been negatively impacted by both the effects of coronavirus and from foreign pressures caused by Russia and Saudi Arabia in the oil markets.
For the U.S. oil industry, the call it had been desperately hoping for finally came on April 2. That's when, for the first time in nearly a month, President Donald Trump picked up the phone in the White House and spoke to Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and that country's de facto ruler. For the preceding three weeks, the Saudis and the Russians, two of the three largest oil producers in the world, had been engaged in a ruinous price war, after failing to reach an agreement on production cuts in early March.
That decision, made by the Crown Prince, who overruled his older brother, Riyadh's energy minister, set off a devastating chain reaction in global markets. At a time of plunging global demand because of the coronavirus, the two producers increased their production: oil prices collapsed, wreaking havoc in the U.S. oil industry. The price war was irrational, economically speaking, given that the Saudis require $70 per barrel to fund their nation's elaborate social safety net. The Russians need just $40 to meet their budgetary obligations. The irrationality intensified nervousness in U.S. equity and, in particular, credit markets. U.S. shale producers, who need about $40 a barrel to be profitable, are on the hook for $68 billion in debt that's coming due over the next 30 months.
Over the past month, the Trump administration had become convinced that Russia was not the Saudis' only target. Officials believe Riyadh also wanted to wipe out a lot of U.S. shale producers, whose emergence over the last decade had turned the U.S., as of last year, into the leading oil producer in the world. Trump has often boasted about the U.S. becoming an energy "superpower." That was now very much at risk. Trump, according to a White House official familiar with the call, was polite but firm with bin Salman, telling him "enough was enough."
The United States has tremendous leverage over Riyadh. Washington is the Kingdom's ultimate security guarantor and has effectively kept the House of Saud in power for decades. Further, the Crown Prince has a dwindling number of allies in Washington. The 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Kingdom's unpopular war against Iranian proxies in Yemen alienated traditional allies on Capitol Hill. "It's not like he can get a lot of dinner dates in town these days," says John Hannah, a longtime Saudi watcher and a senior counselor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
The next day, as Trump was meeting with CEOS from the oil sector, the Saudis responded. They would support production cuts of at least six million barrels a day, they said, and would discuss those potential cuts with the rest of OPEC and Russia on Monday. (Moscow is not a formal member of OPEC.) Putin issued a statement saying he could live with an oil price of $42 per barrel. Oil prices surged as a result, rising 15 percent on Friday to over $34.00 per barrel. At the start of the year crude was $65 per barrel before falling to as low as $20 earlier this week.
There are strings attached to the prospect of Saudi and Russian cuts, however, as Trump and the oil executives discussed on Friday. The Saudis and the Russians want U.S. producers to participate in managing the market. The Saudi-OPEC-Russian alliance wants the U.S. as well as smaller producers, including Canada and Brazil, to join in cutting production by a total of 10 million barrels a day, Moscow said. According to Trump administration officials, some U.S. shale producers are willing to go along in order to try to get prices up.
The U.S. oil majors—Exxon, Chevron, Conoco Phillips—are hesitant. Coordinating production cuts raises obvious antitrust issues, particularly since any global effort to slash production would need to involve the European major companies as well: BP, Royal Dutch Shell and French giant Total. The Justice Department would need to pledge to look the other way before the majors would play along, energy analysts say. Moreover, with solid balance sheets, they were no doubt looking to pick up distressed assets from over-leveraged shale producers.
Everything was on the table at the White House on Friday. The executives discussed the possibility of U.S. production cuts and debated whether Trump should apply tariffs to Saudi oil imports should the Kingdom not follow through with its own cuts. "Every understands that this is a crisis, there is no division on that," said Harold Hamm, former Continental Resources CEO and an informal adviser to Trump.
The collapse in global demand, said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman at IHT Markit and a longtime oil analyst, is unprecedented in modern times. But some of the current crisis mirrors an industry emergency of the past.
Earlier this week, two Texas-based shale producers, Pioneer Natural Resources and Parsley Energy, sent a letter to the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil industry in the state, asking it to hold a hearing in the hope of setting production quotas in the state.
It has done so before. In an era of collapsing demand and vast overproduction, the governor of the state actually sent in thousands of armed National Guards and Texas Rangers to shut down production in east Texas. The railroad commission issued "pro-rationing orders," which were enforced by state troopers. The year was 1931, two years into what came to be known as the Great Depression.
