Saudi Arabia, the leader of the member countries of the OPEC oil cartel, and Russia, its biggest oil-producer ally outside the group, refused to further increase oil production in the near future, in fact rebuffing the call for action of the US President Donald Trump to cool the market.
"I do not influence prices," the Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Khalid Al-Falikh, told reporters in Algiers, where a meeting of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee of the OPEC and non-OPEC countries was held.
The Brent crude oil price reached $80 per barrel this month, prompting Trump to repeat his demand for OPEC to reduce oil prices. The rise in oil prices was mainly caused by a decline in oil exports from Iran, the OPEC member, due to new US sanctions.
Saudi Arabia has spare capacity to increase production output, but this is not required and may not be needed next year, as OPEC predicts that production growth in non-OPEC countries may exceed world demand, Khalid Al-Falih said. He stated that Saudi Arabia can raise oil production up to 1.5 million barrels per day in case of necessity.
Alexander Novak, the Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, said that it is not necessary to immediately increase oil output, but the trade war between China and the United States as well as US sanctions against Iran create difficulties for the oil markets.
"The oil demand will be declining in the fourth quarter of this year and in the first quarter of next year, so we made a decision to stick to our June agreements," he said.
Falikh said that a 100 percent compliance level with the deal could be achieved within 2-3 months, while Novak considered that this could happen within the September-October period.
The next meeting of the Monitoring Committee will be held on November 11 in Abu Dhabi, followed by the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on 6-7 December in Vienna.
