Zurich Even the biggest disagreements among OPEC members are usually resolved behind closed doors. But this time everything is different. Hours before an apparent meeting of the oil cartel scheduled for Monday, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei appeared on US television broadcaster CNBC. He emphasized his country’s “sovereign right” to produce more oil.

The answer was not long in coming: Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was interviewed by Bloomberg TV. “It’s a whole group against one country,” he said. Asked whether the OPEC-Plus coalition around Saudi Arabia and Russia would increase oil production despite protests from the emirates, he replied: “We can’t do that.”

The fact that the energy ministers of the two Arab countries pitted each other against each other in TV interviews with Western TV stations and sometimes made internal conversations public shows that the mood within the cartel is low.