Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Thursday that the country doesn’t see a production cut as viable. “OPEC has also held bilateral dialogues with Russia and China this year, and later this month the OPEC-India Energy Dialogue would have its first meeting”, Dr. Kachikwu stated.
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In response to comments by the Nigerian secretary general of OPEC before the 168th meeting, Iranian had stressed that Iran’s production will increase after the lifting of sanctions calling for a return of OPEC quota system.
That plan clearly hasn’t worked, with benchmark USA crude’s value falling by more than 40 percent over the past year and now hovering around the $40 mark per barrel. It said the World oil demand in 2015 grew by 1.5 million barrels per day, up from 1 million barrels per day in 2014.
It said that dialogue and collaboration with consumers, non-OPEC producers, oil companies, and investors are essential to attaining the common goal of a more orderly oil market.
The last thing that struggling USA shale producers wanted to see from the meeting was OPEC lifting its output ceiling from 30 million bpd to 31.5 million bpd, but unfortunately that is exactly what they got.
At the press conference following the ministerial meeting, the President of Opec, Nigeria’s oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, explained the thinking behind Opec’s decision.
Oil prices have more than halved over the past 18 months to a fraction of what most OPEC members need to balance their budgets. Instead, OPEC said its members would maintain production levels.
In addition, the dollar rose against other major currencies on stronger-than-expected U.S. employment data.
According to him, the conference was centered on enhancing market stability which would benefit all stakeholders and contribute to global economic growth which could be achieved through concerted effort of stakeholders.
Oil prices fell on Friday after news that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was planning to maintain its production near record highs despite depressed prices, as the producer group continued to guard its share of an oversupplied market.
The ministers agreed to readmit past member Indonesia, to expand their ranks to 13.
“The stock-build will continue to weigh on the market, with prices unlikely to move beyond the current range until well into 2017”, Chris Bake, a senior executive at Vitol Group, the biggest independent oil trader, said December 2.
OPEC’s poorer countries have been piling pressure on its wealthier members, led by Saudi Arabia, to curb supply.
“OPEC has never been more divided”, Fadel Gheit, an Oppenheimer analyst who has been closely covering the oil industry for 35 years, recently told CNNMoney.
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Noting there are at least three shooting wars within about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of about 30 percent of the world’s oil production in the Middle East, he writes: “Compared to today, a couple of years ago seems like a pretty calm time”.
