TO boost oil prices and despite the fierce opposition of several member countries of the OPEC+ alliance, Saudi Arabia announced an additional cut to its oil production: it will be one million barrels per day.
This cut will take effect from July, but “it can be extended,” said Energy Minister Abdel Aziz bin Salmán as he left the meeting of producer countries of the Organization that began on Saturday in Vienna.
The ministers of the OPEC+ alliance have been engaged since Saturday in tough negotiations in the Austrian capital to stop the fall in oil prices and, in advance, the possibility of a new production cut was outlined.
The thirteen members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), led by Saudi Arabia and which includes Venezuela, and the group of its ten partners, led by Russia, debated tensely for an agreement on the policy of this alliance.
The meeting at the Opec headquarters began yesterday almost three hours after schedule and among the options that were on the table was precisely the cut of at least one million barrels per day, according to a source close to the negotiation.
The first technical meeting on Saturday ended without any recommendation, the same source said.
According to the Bloomberg agency, the United Arab Emirates, which advocated greater production, defends increasing the base on which its pumping quota is calculated.
However, this measure would be detrimental to some African countries, which for political reasons are reluctant to adjust their base, despite barely meeting their production targets.
Upon arrival at the Opec headquarters yesterday, the group’s ministers adopted the silence that characterizes the leaders of this pact.
The Saudi representative, Energy Minister Abdel Aziz bin Salmán, avoided answering questions from the crowd of journalists gathered at the OPEC entrance. The Russian vice prime minister, in charge of the Energy portfolio, Alexander Novak, did not speak to the press either.
However, at the exit it was the Saudi who broke the news about the additional cut in crude oil production.
The decision to regulate the supply with a cut in production to prop up prices faced resistance from countries that advocated maintaining the quotas because they need more oil revenue.
Despite the fact that oil prices rebounded in the last two days, prices have fallen by 10% since several members of Opec+ announced a surprise cut in their production of more than one million barrels per day in early April.
This reduction in production came up against a market threatened by the impact of inflation, the monetary tightening of the large banks, a less fluid than expected recovery in Chinese demand and various turbulences that affected the financial system.
Brent, which is the reference in Europe, is at 76 dollars a barrel and the US marker WTI is trading at 71 dollars, very far from the levels reached in March 2022 at the start of the war in Ukraine, when they reached close to 140 dollars a barrel./International writing with AFP