The OPEC Plus announcement of a 2 million barrels per day cut in total oil production reflects another ratchet downward in the production capacity of the OPEC member nations, which continues to fall slowly due to Green Deal disinvestment in exploration, discovery and recovery of oil. Russia, Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. appear to be the exceptions. Saudi Arabia is in doubt on that score; its maximum capacity is said by Saudi Aramco to be 12 million bpd, but it has not produced more than 10.5 million bpd for years.
While EIR has reported on this many times in recent years, here is acknowledgment in today’s Washington Post lead editorial telling Biden to “calm down” about the cut and pursue the Green New Deal: “The real world impact of the OPEC Plus production cut might be less than the headline numbers suggest. Though a production cut of 2 million barrels per day is 2% of the global supply, OPEC Plus was already missing its daily quotas this year by as much as 3 million barrels according to the Wall Street Journal.”
