Saudi Arabia infroms on output cut extension
ASTANA. KAZINFORM During a forum in the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said OPEC members potentially agreed to extend their production cuts. He underlined that for now not all interested countries have joined this extension without mentioning them, Lenta.ru reports.
Al-Falih added that the extension period is not important as it mainly aims at balancing the market. According to the representative of Saudi Arabia, for the first three months the agreement was going well but failed to fully achieve the target figures.
The energy minister highlighted that all Persian Gulf countries are concerned about what will become of the industry in several years if the investment slump observed for the last two years continues.
A week earlier it got about that in March the oil output reduction by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was larger than agreed. According to Reuters, last month 11 of OPEC countries have fulfilled the agreement conditions to the extent of 104 per cent.
On April 10, Essam alMarzouq, Kuwait's oil minister, said he expected Opec to extend the deal noting increasing compliance from Opec and non-Opec members. On that very day, Russia was reported to express its disappointment with the interim results of the agreement with OPEC for the first time.
The next OPEC meeting will be in Vienna in May 25 where the oil ministers will debate whether to extend the supply-cut agreement.
OPEC and several other states have limited output for half a year since January 1. The agreement was reached between Russia and the oil cartel in early December 2016.