Saudi Arabia is one OPEC member (also the most influential) that insists that producers use the secondary sources figures reported by OPEC when determining who will cut/freeze production and who will cut how much.
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Brent futures fell 32 cents, or 0.7 percent, to settle at.63 a barrel, while US crude lost 24 cents, or 0.5 percent, to settle at.57 per barrel.
Oil extended its losses for a third day as a rally in the USA dollar offset optimism by Saudi Arabia that Opec will finalise a deal this month to curb output and stabilise prices. The SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (SPY) finished the week with a gain of 1%, while the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) was flat.
Falih told Al-Arabiya that he hoped an agreement with Russian Federation to cooperate on market stability would correspond with OPEC’s meeting on Nov 30 in Vienna.
West Texas Intermediate for December delivery was at $45.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 23 cents, at 3:09 p.m.in Hong Kong.
OPEC members have proposed trimming collective output to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels a day.
“The US is sort of the flag-bearer for capitalism and free markets”, said Falih, adding, “The US continues to be a very important part of a global industry that is interconnected, that is dealing with a fungible commodity which is crude oil”.
Libya and Nigeria, where production is still recovering after a spate of violence and militant attacks targeted oil infrastructure, are the two other special cases, Secretary-General Barkindo said November 15. Stockpiles increased by 5.27 million barrels to 490.3 million barrels last week, according to a report Wednesday from the Energy Information Administration.
IG Group market strategist Jingyi Pan said market sentiment has been buoyed by reports that key producers including Iran and Iraq were thinking about restraining production. Opec will likely complete an accord that doesn’t include individual supply targets for members, according to a Bloomberg survey. Falih also said he believed the crude market was on its way to becoming balanced and that an agreement by OPEC in Vienna on November 30 would speed the process.
Oil prices rose around 2 percent on Tuesday to move away from multi-month lows struck the day before, pushed higher by expectations of falling shale output and renewed optimism that OPEC will deliver on touted production cuts.
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Analysts, however, are not so confident in an agreement at the meeting, warning there are still some obstacles.
