Prices of crude oil eased down on Thursday after US President Donald Trump called out for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to hit the brakes in his latest round of Twitter posts.
According to CNBC, Trump sent out a message to the members of the oil producing and exporting organization to lower down its crude prices, a demand which apparently been heard of the concerned parties.
As cited by the publication, the oil futures for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude, for example, plunged slightly right after Trump's social media posting. It did recover for a bit later on but then retreated back once again, flatlining the rate at USD$70 a barrel before Wednesday's market closed.
In a similar case, Brent crude oil LCOc1 mellowed down at USD$78.70 per barrel while the US light crude CLc1 dipped ever so low at USD$70.80 a barrel after its increase on that same day by 2 percent, a report from Reuters said.
This current oil price hike situation is a far cry from last week's. As previously reported in this site, Brent prices climbed up to a staggering USD$80 per barrel and WTI at close to USD$71 a barrel.
At that time of writing, it was revealed that the surging price trends were attributed to the failing US crude inventories. Citing the data provided by the oil industry research firm, American Petroleum Institute (API), the US oil production output fell by over 5 million barrels, far from what was earlier projected of 800,000 barrel decrease.
Price for Protection
Meanwhile, the urge from Trump to maintain lower crude oil rates directly linked to the North American nation's active involvement in the security and protection of oil global oil trade.
The Trump message quoted by Market Watch indicated that it is the US, among other world powers, that protect oil producing countries in the Middle East.
The US head of state said that these production and trading entities wouldn't be safe if not for the US presence in the region. Despite this, OPEC is still pushing the boundaries on its ever-increasing oil prices.
The comment from the office of the US President came just in time before the highly-anticipated meeting of OPEC representatives and several non-member countries slated to take place on Sept. 23 in Algeria.
Earlier in June, Trump pushed for the multi-national oil commission to increase its output to which OPEC responded to and fulfilled accordingly.
