OPEC Ends Thursday Meeting Without Oil Cut Deal

By Adedapo Adesanya

The first part of the two-day meeting of members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ended on Thursday night without any announcement on possible cuts to production that would support the price of fuel around the global market.

A spokesman for the cartel said after the conclusion of the meeting, an expected news conference would not take place and may likely be followed with a written statement.

It was reported that Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, and other officials left the meeting without announcing any deal.

OPEC’s members have been expected to prolong production cuts that they agreed on till March 2020.

Business Post had earlier reported that Russia’s energy minister, Alexander Novak said a potential deeper cut of an additional 500,000 barrels per day was under discussion ahead of the meeting.

The price of crude has been affected in recent years by a recovery in supplies from countries that were not part of the OPEC community, particularly the United States, which is now the world’s largest producer.

As a result of this, OPEC nations agreed earlier this year to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day until March 2020. Yesterday’s meeting was majorly for OPEC ministers but the discussion will continue on Friday to include non-OPEC members that make up the OPEC+ Alliance

With Nigeria meeting the compliance for the cuts, Iraq is the major country breaching the agreement at the expense of Saudi Arabia, which is bearing the burden of the largest share of OPEC’s production cuts. This further implies that if countries do not comply with the current agreement, voting for more cuts was unnecessary.

As at the time of this report, the international benchmark, the Brent Crude, was trading at $63.42 per barrel, the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $58.43, and the Nigerian Crude, Bonny Light was trading above $64 per barrel.

The major threat to oil prices now is the US-China trade war that has dragged on and is entering its seventeenth month after chances at a deal are been met with resistance from both sides.