White House faces oil standoff with Saudi Arabia and UAE as prices soar

With relations between the Middle East oil powers and Washington at their lowest ebb in modern times, though, a reckoning is due that may realign the regional order on terms that favour Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Both leaders have made it clear that they will settle for nothing less, and are ready to extract their price.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been incensed by the Biden administration removing the Iran-backed Houthis from the global terror list as they continue a painstaking series of negotiations with Iran to restart the Obama-era nuclear deal shredded by Donald Trump.

Beyond that, though, there is a strong feeling in both capitals that Biden has approached the region with a deeply critical view of countries that had long been security allies, and lenient on Iran, which remains a foe.

Having attempted last week to recruit Venezuela to the cause of isolating Russia, the White House views efforts at repair work on the relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE as an acceptable price to pay.

Sir John Jenkins, a former British ambassador to Riyadh and a senior fellow at the UK thinktank Policy Exchange, said ties that had been growing between Riyadh and Moscow, particularly since Biden sidelined Prince Mohammed, would probably need to be recalibrated if a reset was to take place.

Robin Mills, the CEO of the UAE-based consultancy Qamar Energy, said increasing oil supply, and therefore reducing prices at the bowser, was a relatively straightforward technical process, but carried political and economic risk in dealings with the global oil body Opec, of which Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are members.