DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it will cut oil production by 500,000 barrels a day from May until the end of 2023, which could push prices up globally.

Higher oil prices would help fill the coffers of Russian President Vladimir Putin while his country is at war with Ukraine, and force Americans and other countries to pay even more amid inflation fueled in part by the conflict.

It could also further strain relations with the United States, which has urged Saudi Arabia and other allies to boost production as they try to cut prices and cut Russia’s finances.

The Saudi Energy Ministry said the cuts would be made in coordination with some OPEC members and non-OPEC countries, but did not name them. The cuts are in addition to the cuts announced in October last year. infuriated the Biden administration.

The ministry called the move a “preventive measure” aimed at stabilizing the oil market. The cuts are less than 5% of Saudi Arabia’s average production of 11.5 million barrels per day in 2022.

Early cuts – about 2 million barrels per day – happened on the eve of the US midterm elections, in which price increases were the main problem. President Joe Biden then promised there would be “consequences” and Democratic lawmakers called for a freeze on cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

Both the US and Saudi Arabia denied any political motives in the dispute, each saying it was focused on maintaining a healthy market price.

After these cuts, oil prices actually declined. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was trading at around $80 a barrel late last week, compared to about $95 a barrel in early October when earlier cuts were agreed.

Christian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at Rice University’s Baker Public Policy Institute, said the Saudis are determined to keep oil prices high enough to fund the many ambitious mega-projects linked to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Vision 2030 plan to overhaul the economy.

“This domestic interest takes precedence in Saudi decision-making over relations with international partners and is likely to remain a point of friction in US-Saudi relations for the foreseeable future, even without taking into account the Russian dimension,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco recently announced record profit of $161 billion since last year. Earnings are up 46.5% from the company’s 2021 results of $110 billion. Aramco said it hopes to increase production to 13 million barrels per day by 2027.

In recent years, the long-standing US-Saudi alliance has been under growing tension after assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018a US-based journalist; and Saudi Arabia’s disastrous war with Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

As a presidential candidate, Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a “rogue” over Khashoggi’s assassination, but when oil prices surged after his inauguration, he backed down. Last July, he visited the kingdom in an attempt to mend relations, drawing criticism. For fist exchange with Crown Prince Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia has denied Russian support in Ukraine, even as it has forged closer ties with both Moscow and Beijing in recent years, unnerving its longtime allies in Washington. Last week, Aramco announced billions of dollars of investment in China’s downstream petrochemical industry.

Elaine Lis

TOKYO (Reuters) – Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Oscar-winning Japanese composer best known for scoring The Last Emperor, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and other films, has died at the age of 71, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported on Sunday.

Sakamoto was also known for his work with the pioneering electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), of which he co-founded.

Acquainted with the piano as a child, Sakamoto lived for music. As a high school student, he rode in Tokyo commuter cars so crowded that no one could move, amusing himself by counting all sorts of sounds the train made along the way.

Sakamoto, who named the classical musician Claude Debussy as his hero, studied ethnomusicology at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, with a particular interest in the traditional music of Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, as well as Indian and African musical traditions.

“Asian music influenced Debussy a lot, and Debussy influenced me a lot. So music travels the world and comes full circle,” he told WNYC Public Radio in 2010.

Inspired by electronic music, he and fellow studio members Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi formed YMO in 1978. The band’s pioneering use of a vast array of electronic instruments has been a national and international success.

Sakamoto’s first soundtrack was for the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, in which he also played a POW camp commandant alongside David Bowie. The score went on to win BAFTAs.

His most famous work was the 1987 film The Last Emperor, in which he also starred. The music received an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

Sakamoto, who was an anti-nuclear activist and environmentalist, took a break from work for about a year in 2014 to receive treatment for throat cancer. Although he recovered from it after many years of treatment, he announced on his website in January 2021 that he had been diagnosed with rectal cancer.

The story goes on

In December 2022, Sakamoto performed a farewell concert for his fans which was streamed online.

“My strength has really dropped, so a normal concert of about an hour to ninety minutes will be very difficult,” he said in an online post a few days before.

“As a result, I recorded her song after song and edited it together so that it could be presented as a normal concert, which I believe can be enjoyable in a normal way. Please enjoy.”

(Reporting by Elaine Lees; editing by Christopher Cushing, Edwina Gibbs, and Andrew Havens)