The decision may further exacerbate the energy crisis in the EU and the US, that are struggling to diversify their supply after sanctioning Russian oil which has already caused an unprecedented rise in fuel prices
It’s straight up explained in the article - russian economy greatly depend on oil being expensive - so US and their vassals were trying to lower the prices as part of the economic war. Rising prices will benefit Russia while also worsening crisis in Europe. Even worse for them, it means that the reported flirt of Saudis with Russia was not a hearsay and it had much greater range than imagined. OPEC basically directly opposed USA on this.
How is this a setback?
Less oil means that oil and gasoline prices will go up. Biden and Scholz both asked Saudi-Arabia to increase production instead.
oh I saw it from the perspective that we should try to use as little oil and gas anyways.
It’s straight up explained in the article - russian economy greatly depend on oil being expensive - so US and their vassals were trying to lower the prices as part of the economic war. Rising prices will benefit Russia while also worsening crisis in Europe. Even worse for them, it means that the reported flirt of Saudis with Russia was not a hearsay and it had much greater range than imagined. OPEC basically directly opposed USA on this.