Trump speaks with Putin on oil for second straight day

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - U.S. President Donald Trump held a second straight day of telephone conversations with Russia's president focused on oil and the international fight against the novel coronavirus, the White House said Friday.

"President Trump and President Putin discussed the latest efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and maintain stability in global energy markets," spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The leaders also discussed bilateral and global issues, Deere said.

The call is the second in as many days that Trump has held with Putin.

He spoke with the Russian leader and Saudi King Salman on Thursday evening in a bid to have the energy rivals reach an accord to lower oil production to prop up brent crude prices.

"The numbers are so low that there'll be layoffs all over the world. There'll be certainly layoffs in this country. And we don't want that to happen," Trump told reporters Thursday.

OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing countries agreed early Friday to curb total oil output by 10 million barrels per day (bpd) from May 1 until June 30 -- much less than the market expectation of 15-20 million bpd.

While the glut of supply in the oil market is estimated to increase by around 15 million bpd in the second quarter of the year, the current OPEC+ cut is not sufficient to avoid reaching full storage capacity unless countries outside OPEC+ such as the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Norway also lower their output.