UK’s Johnson in Gulf to ask Saudi and UAE to pump more oil

ABU DHABI (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday ahead of talks with United Arab Emirates and Saudi leaders to secure more oil flows from the Gulf and increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.

With Britain, like much of the West, facing spiralling energy prices, Johnson is keen to encourage producers to increase output and secure other supplies to try to help consumers and reduce reliance on Russian exports.

So far Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose close ties with Washington are under strain, have snubbed U.S. pleas to ramp up oil production to tame soaring crude prices that threaten global recession after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The world must wean itself off Russian hydrocarbons and starve Putin’s addiction to oil and gas,” Johnson said before his meetings. “Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are key international partners in that effort.”

The two Gulf states are among the few OPEC oil exporters with spare oil capacity to raise output and potentially offset supply losses from Russia. But they have tried to steer a neutral stance between Western allies and Moscow, their partner in an oil producers’ grouping known as OPEC+.

The group has been raising output gradually each month by 400,000 barrels a day, resisting pressure to act more quickly.

The UAE, where Johnson was due to meet Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, remains committed to the OPEC+ deal, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The wealthy Gulf state has deepened ties with Moscow and Beijing in the last few years and abstained last month in a U.S.-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, which Russia has described as a “special military operation”.

SAUDI EXECUTIONS

Johnson’s planned talks in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will make him only the second major Western leader to visit the kingdom since journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s 2018 killing by Saudi government agents in Istanbul.

His visit also comes four days after Saudi Arabia executed 81 men, the largest number in a single day for decades, for offences ranging from joining militant groups to holding “deviant beliefs”.

Asked about criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, Johnson said: “I’ve raised all those issues many, many times over the past … and I’ll raise them all again today.

“But we have long, long standing relationships with this part of the world and we need to recognise the very important relationship that we have … and not just in hydrocarbons.”

The search for new energy supplies has put into doubt Britain’s push to drive down emissions to meet its net zero target by 2050, with officials looking at ways to increase oil and gas production at home, as well as abroad.

During the visit, Saudi Arabia, the third-largest supplier of diesel to Britain, will also confirm that its alfanar Group will invest 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) in the Lighthouse Green Fuels Project in Teeside, northeastern England, which hopes to produce sustainable aviation fuel from waste at scale.

($1 = 0.7655 pound)

(Reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai and Elizabeth Piper and William James in London; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alex Richardson)