OpeOluwani Akintayo
21 January 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Following reports that Russia and Iraq are considering exiting the oil cut deal with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, has urged members involved in the cooperation, to extend the deal beyond 2018.
The oil minister who made the statement on Sunday, however, said it might mean transposing into another type of deal instead of supply cut.
The ongoing oil cut agreement which started last year January will end in December 2018.
Speaking to reporters ahead of Sunday’s meeting of the joint ministerial committee in charge of overseeing implementation of the cuts, said the ongoing oil cut deal has proved to the world that the cooperation among oil producers was “here to stay”, according to Reuters.
“We shouldn’t limit our efforts to 2018 – we need to be talking about a longer framework of cooperation,” Falih said. “I am talking about extending the framework that we started, which is the declaration of cooperation, beyond 2018.
“This doesn’t necessarily mean sticking barrel by barrel to the same limits or cuts, or production targets country by country that we signed up to in 2016, but assuring stakeholders, investors, consumers and the global community that this is something that is here to stay. And we are going to work together.”
OPEC and other producers led by Russia are next scheduled to meet to discuss oil policy in June.
