Oil Prices Fall as Trump Says OPEC Is “Ripping Off the Rest of The World”

Investing.com – Oil prices slid on Wednesday following U.S. President Donald Trump’s comment that OPEC is “ripping off the rest of the world” by sending oil prices higher.

“OPEC and OPEC nations are as usual ripping off the rest of the world, and I don’t like it. Nobody should like it,” Trump said before the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.

“We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.”

His comments came just a week after OPEC and other major oil producers rebuffed his latest call and said they would only push prices down if customers requested it.

“OPEC has actually been a pretty good first responder. They have put a significant number of barrels on the market since President Trump started tweeting and since the June meeting,” said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, for November delivery traded 0.2% lower to $71.16 a barrel by 12:15AM ET (04:15 GMT), while on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, for December delivery slipped 0.1% to trade at $81.19 a barrel.

A report by the American Petroleum Institute (API) also weighed on sentiment as it showed U.S. crude stocks unexpectedly climbed last week.

Crude inventories rose by 2.9 million barrels in the week to Sept. 21 to 400 million, the API revealed, compared with the expectations for a decrease of 1.3 million barrels.

In other news, India is cutting imports of Iranian oil to zero in November, Bloomberg reported. Major local oil companies, including Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. haven’t asked for any Iranian cargoes for loading in November and are not planning any purchases. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. hasn’t made any nominations for that month, but may do so later, a company official said.

India is the second-largest buyer of Iranian oil, having imported about 27% of the Middle Eastern country’s exports this year, according to data from Bloomberg tanker tracking data.

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