Oil prices are up more than 5% after Saudi Arabia and other major producers vowed to cut production.
Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, was up 5.5% by 9am on Monday to $84.28 per barrel after it was announced that production would be cut by 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year.
The resulting price increases will take some time to filter through to forecourts but will eventually add to the difficulties facing many in the UK during the cost of living crisis.
Rising oil prices will also present a further challenge to central banks trying to keep inflation in check.
There are also concerns that higher oil prices will bolster Vladimir Putin’s war chest as the Ukraine war continues.
A number of countries have cut down on the energy they import from Russia since it invaded Ukraine but, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Russia is still exporting oil, mainly to China and India.
Clifford Bennett, chief economist at ACY Securities, said in a report: “This will create both political waves across Europe and even higher general inflation in the USA, leading to renewed pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep hiking rates aggressively.”
Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners LLC, said that it could take as much as a year for the cuts to take effect.
‘It’s a big deal… you could have a very significant price response’
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However, even though the production cut accounts for only a small amount of the world’s daily usage, the impact on prices could be big, he added.
“It’s a big deal because of the way oil prices work,” he said.
“You are in a market that is relatively balanced.
“You take a small amount away, depending on what demand does, you could have a very significant price response.”
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The development comes as a blow for inflation, with expectations of inflation coming down partly balancing on the trajectory of the oil price.
“Markets are aware that if the pressure continues, central banks will need to extend or strengthen their interest-rate hiking cycles, the expectations of which will need to be repriced.”
‘Stabilising the oil market’
The Saudi Energy Ministry has said its cuts are a “precautionary measure” aimed at stabilising the oil market.
Cuts were also announced by Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman.
Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said his country would extend a voluntary cut of 500,000 barrels until the end of the year, extending a reduction announced in February.
The countries are all members of the OPEC+ group, which includes OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), Russia and others.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
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That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Image: Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
Prince Harry has apologised to Canada for wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers cap while attending a World Series game against the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan, were pictured at the baseball game last Tuesday, which Toronto ultimately lost to the Dodgers in a seventh-game decider on Sunday.
The prince joked to Canadian broadcaster CTV that he wore the Dodgers merchandise “under duress”.
He said it felt like “the polite thing to do” after being invited to the dugout by the team’s owner.
“Firstly, I would like to apologise to Canada for wearing it,” he said.
“Secondly, I was under duress. There wasn’t much choice.”
“When you’re missing a lot of hair on top, and you’re sitting under floodlights, you’ll take any hat that’s available,” he joked.
“Game five, game six, game seven, I was Blue Jays throughout. Now that I’ve admitted that, it’s going to be pretty hard for me to return back to Los Angeles.”
The royal couple, who met in 2016 and married in 2018, moved to California in 2020 – after initially setting up home in Canada. They live in Montecito with their children Archie, six, and Lilibet, four.
Harry’s father, the King, is the head of state of Canada – a Commonwealth nation.
Meghan has previously shown her support for the Blue Jays, a nod to her former home city.
The former actress lived in Toronto while filming the legal drama Suits. She appeared in more than 100 episodes.
She and Harry also spent time together there during the early stages of their relationship.
James Watson, co-discoverer of the double-helix shape of DNA, has died at the age of 97.
James D. Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for discovering that deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
Their co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped revolutionise medicine, crime-fighting, genealogy and ethics.
The discovery turned him into a legendary figure, but later in life he faced condemnation for offensive remarks, including saying black people are less intelligent than white people.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.