*Says oil market on “right track”
*As Saudi Aramco to issue 10 billion range bond
OpeOluwani Akintayo
with agency report
13 January 2019, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih said on Sunday in Abu Dhabi, that there is no need for an extraordinary OPEC meeting before April.
An emergency meeting would be required if OPEC+ needed to make extra cuts apart from the 1.2 million barrels per day already agreed last December- the cut starts this month.
Meanwhile, the minister said the oil market is “on the right track” and prices will bounce back, adding that if need be, oil producers would cut more.
“If we look beyond the noise of weekly data and speculators’ herd-like behavior, I remain convinced that we’re on the right track, and that the oil market will quickly return to balance,” Reuters quoted Falih to have said while addressing an oil conference in Abu Dhabi.
“If we find that more needs to be done, we will do so in unison with our OPEC and non-OPEC partners where collaboration is essential too,” he added.
In an effort to get rid of oil glut from the market and increase crashing oil prices, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, and its partners last December, agreed to cut a combined output of 1.2mb/d.
Parties to the cut, will freeze output to last October production – Nigeria’s production as at last October was 1.74mb/d, although the country targets between 2.3mb/d as stated in its N8.83 trillion 2019 national budget, and 2.2mb/d as recently stated by the Minister of States for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.
According to Falih secondary sources suggest OPEC production in December was already more than 600,000 barrels per day lower than in November.
Saudi Arabia has also signaled its readiness to reduce its market supplies in February, lower than its expected cut quota in the Declaration of Cooperation, DoC.
“We in Saudi Arabia went beyond our commitment, and have lowered both production and exports,” he said.
He, therefore, said no need for an extraordinary OPEC meeting before April, when the group is set to decide its output policy for the rest of 2019.
In other news, he said Saudi Aramco will issue bonds which will probably be in the 10 billion range, refusing to specify in which currency it will be issued.
However, last week, the minister had said the bonds which would be Aramco’s first in the international debt markets will likely be denominated in U.S. dollars.
The bonds will be issued in the second quarter of this year.