West Texas Intermediate oil for November delivery traded at $50.75 a barrel, down 4 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:03 a.m.in Sydney.
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US crude futures for November delivery were steady at $50.80 a barrel, close to Monday’s four-month high of $51.60 a barrel. Non-OPEC production next year should be higher than 2016 because of activity in Russian Federation, while OPEC production was already higher than August levels by 22,000 bpd.
OPEC’s output rose by 160,000 barrels a day to a record 33.64 million barrels a day last month as Iraq’s production hit a new high and Libya’s ports reopened.
OPEC aims to cut production by 700,000 barrels per day to 32.5 million to 33.0 million bpd by its next policy meeting in Vienna on November 30.
Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter, sees its crude reserves of 266.5 billion barrels lasting 70 more years and hasn’t sought an independent consultant to review the figures, according to a bond prospectus. Russia, which has pledged to join OPEC in cutting output, is set to join the Istanbul meeting later on Wednesday.
But al-Falih had also made clear at the congress earlier in the week that Saudi Arabia was against any drastic output cuts by OPEC to squeeze supply and bolster prices.
In September, members of the The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) voted to cut production for the first time in eight years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he saw no obstacles to a global agreement on an oil output freeze.
“A part of the described upside may anyway occur without prices having to average $60 due to improved hedging opportunities now already in place”, analysts at JBC Energy said.
To speed up a rebalancing of the market, OPEC agreed at a meeting in Algeria on September 28 to cut supply to between 32.50 million bpd and 33.0 million bpd.
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Even if that should materialize at the high end of the estimate, there is still so much oil in storage tanks around the world that crude tankers are slow-steaming or sailing in circles waiting for onshore storage to become available. But prices remain about half of mid-2014 highs above $100 a barrel as questions remain over when the market will return to balance. Instead of cutting production, OPEC opted to pump at high volumes to maintain market share and perhaps drive out US shale oil and gas producers, who have higher operating costs.
