“Since its last meeting in December 2015, crude oil prices have risen by more than 80 percent”, OPEC said in a press release, “This is testament to the fact that the market is moving through the balancing process”, the oil cartel said.
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OPEC pumps around 32.5 million barrels of oil per day, 2.5 million barrels higher than the ceiling set last summer in Vienna.
US West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 were up by 3 cents at $49.20.
International Brent crude oil futures were trading at $49.34 US per barrel, down 38 cents, or 0.8%, from their last settlement by late morning on Thursday.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Tehran would not support any new collective output ceiling and wanted the debate to focus on individual country production quotas.
But the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to agree on these, with Saudi Arabia, its dominant voice, saying any “artificial ceiling” would be premature. However, Saudi Arabia promised not to flood the oil market with extra barrels.
That’s what powerful new Saudi energy minister Khalid Al Falih told CNNMoney’s John Defterios in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
Relations among OPEC members have improved significantly after several acrimonious meetings as the oil-producing group accepts Iran’s revival of crude output, the Iranian oil minister said.
OPEC said Thursday that it expects non-OPEC oil production to fall by 700,000 barrels per day in 2016 after peaking in 2016.
But recently, amid tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, they have been fighting it out to gain market share, boosting supply at a time of weak demand and driving down oil prices.
As a result, prices crashed to $27 per barrel in January, their lowest in over a decade, but have since recovered to around $50 due to global supply outages.
“The price volatility before and after the OPEC meeting has been marginal and confirms the new normal of the market’s lack of interest for OPEC as a trading price input”, Olivier Jakob, managing director of consultant Petromatrix GmbH, said in an emailed note.
The International Tin Council (ITC), established in the mid-1950s, regulated tin prices through maintaining a buffer stock: buying inventories when prices rose and selling when prices fell.
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The group agreed Thursday to name Mohammed Barkindo of Nigeria their new chief.
