Covid-19: Trump to meet oil executives over falling prices, price war

The American Petroleum Institute said it was organising the Friday meeting with Trump, but denied the purpose was to ask for financial help.

President Donald Trump has said he will meet US energy executives this week to discuss plummeting oil values amid coronavirus and a Saudi-Russian price war. "I'm going to meet with the oil companies on Friday," he told a news conference.

Trump expressed alarm at the impact on the US energy industry from the twin blows of the economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus and the Russia-Saudi row. "We don't want to lose our great oil companies," he said.

But he said he had spoken with leaders in both Moscow and Riyadh and "I think that they will work it out