Saudi Arabian Oil Relations with Global Superpowers

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, also known as OPEC, was founded at the Baghdad Conference on September 10-14, 1960 (OPEC, 2025). The five starting members — Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia — created this transnational organization to coordinate and unify petroleum policies amongst the countries involved. This was to confirm secure prices for petroleum producers, including consuming countries or nations, along with a fair return on capital for those investing in the industry (OPEC, 2025), meaning the investors should get back a reasonably higher amount than invested. Later, Algeria, Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates each joined OPEC (OPEC, 2025).  

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is bordered on the north by the countries: Kuwait, Jordan, and Iraq, while its southern borders are shared with Yemen and Oman. Saudi Arabia holds about seventeen percent of the world’s certified petroleum reserves, and it maintains its place as the world's largest swing oil exporter, profiting from low production costs due to its abundant and easily extractable oil supplies.

Map of Saudi Arabia. (Political conflict concept Saudi Arabia VS USA VS Russia...)

During the 1980s and 1990s, Saudi Arabia, alongside OPEC, tried to stabilise prices through production adjustments and collaborations with countries outside OPEC (OPEC, 2025). When the oil prices crumbled because of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia participated in harmonizing the responses of the countries within OPEC, intending to rehabilitate market balance (OPEC, 2025).   

In the 2000s, instability and suspicion grew as traders treated oil as a financial asset, leading to price swings that were unrelated to supply and demand (OPEC, 2025). However, Saudi Arabia stayed neutral to the organization’s efforts to soothe the market, including  OPEC’s attempts to respond to the global financial crisis of 2008, caused by the collapse of the housing market in the United States, in which OPEC wanted to accomplish their goals of sustainable development and to stabilize the market.

Saudi Arabia, once again, played a significant position in handling oversupply, following the year 2014, during the Declaration of Cooperation in 2016, which united OPEC and ten countries outside of OPEC to rebalance the market prices (OPEC, 2025), while the joint declaration between the EU and NATO was also signed, which implemented coordination in cybersecurity, military mobility, and counter terrorism. This declaration involved the country of Russia, which is now a part of the extended collaboration, known as OPEC+ (OPEC, 2025).   

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting tensions with the West forced Moscow to strengthen its relations with Middle Eastern countries, specifically Saudi Arabia, since it is a leading global oil producer. Russia’s goals in doing this were to maintain energy revenues, obtain firm political partners, and to find new alternative markets and financial ways outside of Western control, especially since Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States of America primarily support Ukraine.   

The roots of Saudi Arabian-Russian energy relations go back decades. The USSR supported socialist Arab states, such as Egypt, Algeria, and Syria, but opposed Gulf monarchies, which Saudi Arabia happens to have been a part of. Russia inherited these relations after the Soviet Union's collapse, but lacked a strategy to address them. Russia’s ties with Saudi Arabia were strained by the war in Chechnya, mutual distrust, and instability in Russia's oil industry (Mikulska, 2025), but nevertheless, by the 2010s, both Saudi Arabia and Russia had recognized one another as essential to the global oil markets, and aside from political tensions involving Russia's support for Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria at the time, Saudi Arabia became open to closer alignment. 

What moved Russia towards further cooperation with Saudi Arabia was the shocking geopolitical events, which included Russia’s annexation of Crimea, their isolation from western countries, and the rise of U.S. shale oil (Mikulska, 2025). Both Saudi Arabia and Russia had vast amounts of oil and influence on the market. Still, neither the new leadership of Saudi Arabia, King Salman and Mohammed Bin Salman, sought closer ties, stronger personal relations, or diplomatic wins. Hence, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih of Saudi Arabia and Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Alexander Novak, built deep personal trust with one another. This led to Russia joining OPEC+ in 2016. Since then, Russia and Saudi Arabia have allied to co-led OPEC+ (Mikulska, 2025), reflecting a mutual interest to balance the oil market, protect their national revenues, and resist U.S. shale.

Mohammed Bin Salman and President Putin. (Photo Credit: Middle East MonitorRevealed: Bin Salman and Putin ignited oil crisis with...)

In 2020, the oil price war began. The new Saudi Arabian Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, sought deeper production cuts, but Russia refused this idea due to a fear that the cuts would benefit the U.S. shale. Solution talks collapsed and, despite their partners objections, Saudi Arabia cut prices and increased production (Mikulska, 2025), prompting Russia to match this move. The price war, combined with the COVID-19 crisis, caused a huge global oil glut. The United States intervened to arrange a truce, and according to Mikulska (2025), both Russia and Saudi Arabia viewed this intervention as a show of strength, despite both remaining in competion with U.S. shale producers.

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Saudi Arabia refused the United States' request to increase oil production in order to counteract sanctions imposed on Russia (EPRS, 2025). The United State's request of Saudi Arabia shot to compensate for the loss of Russian oil on the global market in order to prevent price spikes and Russia would fall deeper economically, thereby helping Ukraine. As the West imposed price caps on Russian oil to dampen Russian revenue, Saudi Arabia feared that if it assisted the West now, later, Western countries would also attempt to control Saudi Arabia’s oil prices. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) also utilized a claim to neutrality to maintain control and wanted to keep strong relations with Russia within OPEC+, which was fundamental to control global oil costs.   

Saudi Arabia claimed neutrality; they supported the United Nations efforts in condemning Russia for attacking Ukraine, and they took part in mediating talks and facilitating prisoner exchanges, but at the same time supported the Russian economy by working around sanctions placed on Russia, pushing to cut OPEC+ production and importing large amounts of Russian oil (EPRS, 2025). In February of 2025, Saudi Arabia hosted discussions between Russia and the United States of America, and in March, Mohammad Bin Salman set up direct talks with President Putin of Russia regarding Ukraine (EPRS, 2025).   

Saudi Arabian foreign policy is becoming more strategic, looking to widen and deepen its relationships with world superpowers such as China, Russia, and the United States (EPRS, 2025). Aside from tensions regarding Saudi Arabian and Russian ties, both the U.S. and KSA want to establish a partnership with one another. In May of 2025, Trump visited the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which was a significant move in strategic world economics. During this visit, Saudi Arabia invested billions into the U.S in exchange for a signed defense agreement that included air and missile defence systems including other significant assets from the United States (White House, 2025). Later, President Trump met with the new Syrian leadership and removed certain sanctions on Syria due to requests from Mohammed Bin Salman’s after Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, illustrating Saudi Arabia's growing global influence.

Mohammed Bin Salman and President Trump smiling after making an agreement. (Photo Credit: The pomp, circumstance, benefits, and costs of the trillion-dollar US-Saudi Investment Summit - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

Recently, on November 18, 2025, President Donald Trump of the United States hosted the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman, at the White House. In this meeting, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. further expanded and finalized their agreement. Saudi Arabia would increase their previous investment in the United States of 6 billion USD to 1 trillion USD, and a new strategic defense plan was created that includes U.S. tanks and planes. Key deals include cooperation on nuclear energy, important minerals, and AI and technology from the United States, as well as economic prosperity in the job market for American citizens (White House, 2025).  

Saudi Arabia uses its oil power to conduct strong relations with global superpowers, balancing connections with Russia in OPEC+ and its long-lasting security partnership with the United States of America. The expanded new agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia shows the kingdom’s use of energy and investments to boost its global position. These aspects and new changes will continue to affect geopolitics, specifically in regards to the Russian-Ukraine war and the ever growing tensions between Russia and the United States. Overall, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plays a flexible and strategic role to secure its national interests in a competitive, changing world (EPRS, 2025).

Bibliography

European Parliament Research Service (EPRS) 2025, Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy. 

Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/777922/EPRS_BRI(2025)777922_EN.pdf (Accessed 28, November 2025) 

Mikulska, A. 2025, Russia’s great energy game in the Middle East. 

Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/11/russias-great-energy-game-in-the-middle-east?lang=en (Accessed: 28 November 2025). 

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 2025, Brief history. 

Available at: https://www.opec.org/brief-history.html (Accessed: 28 November 2025). 

The White House 2025, Fact sheet: President Donald J. Trump solidifies economic and defense partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/11/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-solidifies-economic-and-defense-partnership-with-the-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia/ (Accessed: 28 November 2025).