Did President Donald Trump collude with OPEC and cut a backroom deal? There are reports that maybe he did, and it might involve OPEC bringing more oil into the market. The President’s call for more OPEC oil was perhaps just a facade as he with full knowledge had a deal with the cartel to bring on more oil. In fact, there may also be a Russian connection as it appears Russia is also saying that they are prepared to add more oil as the U.S. looks to crush the terrorist sponsor Iranian regime.

Reports state that  Saudi Arabia and Russia had told the U.S. earlier this year that they had planned to boost production through December. What's more, they had reportedly informed the U.S. of their plans before the OPEC+ Russia meeting in Algiers, according to a report in Zero Hedge. Other sources seem to back up this story. Reuters reported that Russia and Saudi Arabia struck a private deal in September to raise oil output to cool rising prices and informed the United States before a meeting in Algiers with other producers, four sources familiar with the plan said.

Now the obvious question, what did the President know and when did he know it? Was Brett Kavanaugh informed of this decision? If so, why did he not immediately leak this to the press? He was obviously involved in this cover-up scheme to bring more oil to the market. He should demand an investigation on himself to clear his name of this dastardly charge.

The aim was clear. The intent was to try to cool prices ahead of Iranian sanctions and a Mid-term election. In fact, one might wonder that by pressuring OPEC to add more supply to the market might be considered collusion when the heads of foreign states drive down gasoline prices to influence the outcome of the Mid-Term elections.

Even the Russians are involved as Russian oil output surged to a record 11.356 million a post-Soviet high. In fact, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Russia has even more spare capacity to add to the market if needed, but refused to say exactly how much. That raises the question, what type of dirt does Donald Trump have on Novak? In fact, perhaps we should require lie detector tests on all involved. If they need help they might want to call Mrs. Ford because she has experience with these types of tests.

So, did President Trump mislead us when he called out OPEC for cheating the global economy? Did he mislead us when he said that he warned Saudi Arabia's King Salman he would not last in power "for two weeks" without the backing of the U.S. military? Is he just blatantly taking advantage of U.S. power to help the American people just so he can brag about it?  Is he driving U.S. unemployment to record lows and making trade deals that raise American workers wages, so he can throw his economic record up in the opposing parties face? The American worker and U.S. businesses have the best prospects they have had in decades! This guy must be stopped! It is totally ruining the Democrats socialist-leaning agenda.

He is also causing more demand for oil by expanding the U.S. economy! How could he? In fact, that demand showed up in last night’s American Petroleum Institute (API) report. Despite going deep into refinery maintenance, the API reported that U.S. crude supply increased by a less than expected 907,000 barrels. Strong exports probably helped keep supply low even as Cushing Oklahoma stocks increased by a whopping 2.01 million barrels. Strong product demand, along with lower runs, led to a 1.703 Million barrel drop in gasoline supply as well as a 1.197-million-barrel decrease in distillate supply. Dow Jones says that U.S. crude stockpiles are expected to have risen by 1.3 million barrels, on average, last week, according to a survey of analysts and traders conducted by The Wall Street Journal.

Just how much oil is at risk from these Iranian sanctions? Bloomberg reports OPEC’s third-largest producer was pumping close to 4 million barrels a day earlier this year, with about 2.5 million of that going to exports. This changed after U.S. President Donald Trump said in May that he was pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear accord and planned to reinstate sanctions on the country’s energy industry. An earlier round of sanctions, under former President Barack Obama, slashed Iran’s oil exports by about half, to roughly 1 million barrels a day, from 2012 through 2015. Trump’s stated aim is to cut Iranian sales to zero, and while the curbs won’t take effect until Nov. 4, they’re already scaring away buyers.

Iran’s exports slumped to 1.7 million barrels a day in September, according to Bloomberg’s tanker tracking data. Even if Trump falls short of his goal and Iran is able to continue selling about 1 million barrels a day, as it did during Obama’s presidency, the country’s partial exit from global oil markets would still leave a big hole in supply.

Natural gas continues to get support from weather and nuke outages. Still, we feel at some point, record production should tank this market unless the winter gets cold. Maybe bracket this market with puts and calls because whatever happens should be big on the up or downside.