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Biden was supposed to travel to Saudi Arabia to beg them to increase production and reduce oil prices, the plans were canceled and at the same time Taiwan was abandoned just like Ukraine as US declared they don't recognize their independence essentially showing green light to China for annexation. This is a good indication that the Western economy can not take another tension specially ever since China began increasing pressure on their economy by shutting down their ports for 2 months.

The question is, what does it all mean for energy prices and the Western economy?
~$120 is here to stay and could start climbing up again if we see the suppliers increase their pressure to raise prices or some idiots start increasing tensions again.
Could the economy of consumer countries take this?

On another news Turkish inflation reached 75% as their attempts to become a hub to transfer the much needed gas to EU failed before they even began anything. That means that faint hope for a little cheaper energy also died for EU.

• I do not live in a western country, but the effect of rising oil prices and scarcity causing panic usually affects lots of other sectors, including energy, transportation food prices and basically anything with a price tag, all of which has a not so pleasant effect on a nation's economy.
• This would depend on how long the high prices last; Businesses are in a habit of pushing all losses to fhebcnsuners by simply raising the r prices to meet change in economies, or even going a bit further to gain even more profits, this creates a dent on consumer economies.

Instead of trying to lobby only Saudi Arabia, I think Biden can rather talk with the OPEC countries and have a meeting with them to understand the situation and need for production increase and lowering of price. He doesn't even need to discuss lowering of price with OPEC because when the market is flooded with products naturally price will drop. I understand that Saudi Arabia has a big influence in the OPEC community but arranging a meeting would give other countries in the group recognition. At least writing through the secretary general would have given his visit more hype except he had other agendas hiden.

@pooya87, Didn't Biden publicly say a few days ago that he would intervene militarily (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1z7AVgtyGA) in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan? My local press also claims that Biden is still traveling to the SA at the end of this month, and this is confirmed by other sources (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/biden-to-visit-saudi-arabia-a-country-he-vowed-to-treat-as-a-pariah.html) from just 48 hours ago.

In addition, OPEC has already agreed to increase oil production to 648 000 barrels per day - but fuel prices in the EU will continue to rise for some time. Fortunately, summer has already arrived in the northern hemisphere, people do not need heating, and bicycles and electric scooters are increasingly being used. This can somewhat ease demand, although it can't stop inflation that was inevitable after 2 difficult years in the pandemic - the war only added fuel to the fire and serves as an excuse to many "it's not our fault, it's the war", but it's a classic political demagoguery.

An amazing world when you live in hallucinations in reality distorted by Russian propaganda :)
Well, how did you swim among unicorns, talking chairs, great Russia, and its invincible army? Stop taking hallucinogens and get back to reality :) And the reality is this: Saudi Arabia made it clear to Western allies that it is ready to increase oil production if Russian production drops significantly under the weight of sanctions, five people familiar with the discussion said.

https://www.ft.com/content/cf18ce69-e46a-4802-9058-1340c5a2c94d

Now you can return to the comfort zone again, to the dreams of propaganda, and think that the reality is different :)

Let me remind you of some funny but "honest" statements, remember? :)
- No sanctions
- We will capture Kyiv in 3 days. We will reach the Polish border in 5 days.
- Sanctions only benefit
- Without Russia, the world economy will collapse
...and many other funny tales from Russian state media

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia depends mainly on the United States in matters of security and defense, so I do not expect that deep differences will occur between the two parties, but the US policy towards this ally seems strange, as the Saudi file on human rights has been criticized, especially in the case of the Khashoggi assassination (Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi),) and there is a war in Yemen In which the United States did not provide sufficient support, it seems that the policy of the United States to the Gulf states needs to change.

Several years ago, the United States tried to support the failed coup in Turkey (2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt),) the inflation that occurred and continued for a while, the government's support for some elements of the opposition in Syria, and the missile problem with Russia, all of which will complicate relations if we ignore hyperinflation.

It's impossible to predict what would any of them to be honest, US was also promising support to Ukraine and we saw what happened in reality! But right now it seems like all sides are trying to deescalate with US state department stating they don't recognize Taiwan's independence (https://www.reuters.com/world/us-updates-fact-sheet-again-says-does-not-support-taiwan-independence-2022-06-03/). Which is a good thing if it continues and I really hope it does otherwise things could get out of hand very quickly.

Some analysts believe that if China really invades Taiwan and US gets involved they will find themselves in a war all around the world. For example two things happened in the past 2 weeks that support this analysis.
One was Russia's fake withdrawal from Syria which was just an excuse to let the Resistance move in and surround US military bases and also to bait Turkey to attack northern Syria and get caught in a hellhole with no exit and continue losing troops (this also put and end to Turkey's attempt to take Iraq's gas and bring it to EU). Other US bases in West Asia were also surrounded and all fingers are on triggers. That's good chunk of US military force.
The other was the Chinese defense minister travel to Iran at the same time all this was happening which many believe was for coordination and planning of what I explained above; a large scale conflict.

If this is true, then it explains the deescalation because it is a good deterrence for US to not want to get involved in Taiwan situation.

That seems to be true but the thing is ever since September 2019 when the Saudi Aramco facility was attacked and million dollar defenses they bought from US proved to be useless and then US didn't do anything to help Saudis, they've been biting the hand that has been feeding them. They also didn't want Biden to win but he did win and now he is mad because they were funding Trump to win. The situation is already too complicated there specially since ceasefire with Yemen is hanging by a thread and they could blow up Aramco again decreasing their production by 50% or maybe more this time.

I also read the news about OPEC but I won't believe it until I see the production increase first.

I don't know how much this decreases the overall demand since I read somewhere that most of the energy usage was already in factories and big industries not the households. Considering how some industries shut down over the past couple of months and generally all of them have been complaining the most about the soaring energy prices I think it is true.

Oil prices continue to rise not even in the Western side of the globe. Even though the public transportation in my country sucks, I am actually considering on taking it due to how bad the situation gets. OPEC increasing their oil production per day will still have its effect felt on the coming months. In the mean time, the rest of the world just have to suck it up before the prices normalize, or at least return to levels that are still bearable once oil production catches full steam on the side of Saudi Arabia.

For the US' stance on Taiwan, they just recently changed their words on the State Department website (https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/) to openly say that they do not support Taiwan's independence.

Just a few weeks ago, Biden is out here stating that they are ready to use military strength to defend Taiwan against a possible Chinese 'invasion' and yet here they are, promoting the 'One China Policy' backing out of their harsh words.