Oil truce in the works?

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix:

Saudi Arabia, Russia and other large oil producers are racing to negotiate a deal to stem the historic price crash as diplomats said some progress was made on Sunday.

The talks still face significant obstacles: a meeting of producers from OPEC+ and beyond -- delayed once -- is only tentatively scheduled for Thursday. Russia and Saudi Arabia want the U.S. to join in, but U.S. President Donald Trump has so far shown little willingness to do so.

Oil diplomats are trying to stitch together a meeting of G20 energy ministers for Friday, part of an effort to bring the U.S. on board, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Crude prices have fallen 50% this year, as the economic effects of the pandemic have knocked out about a third of global demand. The price crash is so dramatic that it’s threatening the stability of oil-dependent nations, the existence of U.S. shale producers, and poses an extra challenge to central banks.

Even the International Energy Agency, which represents nations that consume oil, is calling for action. Oil officials know that if a deal to cut supply in an orderly way isn’t reached, the market will simply force producers to slash output as storage space runs out.

“We see a huge oversupply in the oil market,” Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, said in an interview on Sunday. “There’s a need for the G20 in the driving seat, led by its current chair, Saudi Arabia.”

The aim of talks, first revealed by Trump last week, is to cut oil production by about 10% -- the biggest ever coordinated reduction. Crude rallied on Trump’s comments but pared those gains as the diplomatic intricacies became clearer. Brent futures fell 4% on Monday in Asia to $32.60 a barrel.

Even if a deal is struck for as much as 10 million barrels per day, that will barely dent the supply glut, which is estimated at as much as 35 million barrels a day. In some corners of the physical market prices have already turned negative, and traders have been putting oil into tankers at a record pace to store it at sea.
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The US does not really have a mechanism for ordering cuts in production other than the market place.  The State of Texas Rail Road Commission could order some and is the largest US producer of oil.  But the overproduction has been the result of the Saudis and the Russian's unwillingness to make the cuts necessary to stabilize the market.  It looks like the Russians have been unwilling to deal up until now.