When US president George W Bush, once a Texas oilman, asked Saudi Arabia to pump more crude oil, he may have forgotten that the Saudis have a long memory. And that made it a good bet that his mission this past week would produce a dry hole.

In the 1990s, the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) cartel was eager to pump more oil in a grab for cash as prices — like today — were going up, passing what then was viewed as a healthy sum in the $20-plus range. But then the Asia economic crisis struck and oil prices plummeted to below $10 a barrel. Saudi Arabia and other producers got burned.

“They remember that and they’re not going to have that happen again,” says Robert Ebel, an international energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They understand the market just as well as we do.”

This time Bush, in his trip to Riyadh and his private meetings with Saudi King Abdullah, walked away with a trickle of oil, but nowhere near a gusher.

Timing the announcement with the president’s visit, the Saudis said they would pump an additional 3,00,000 barrels of crude next month. They also made a point that the decision had been made a week ago, and not in response to Bush’s visit.

Energy analysts saw it as a token, and, in fact, oil markets responded by boosting prices a few more dollars to $128 a barrel.

A dozen years ago, OPEC, led by the Saudis, were more likely to loosen their oil spigots, often cheating on the oil cartel’s self-imposed quotas. Today their primary goal is to keep the supply and demand in close balance — and guard against prices tanking.

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