OPEC + is ready to further cut production: new positive for American shale industry?

FxPro analyst said that OPEC and allied oil producers are ready to hold an extraordinary meeting and will do what is needed if the current cut in oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day does not balance the market next year, the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said on Sunday. Extending the output agreement signed in early December will not be a problem and producers will do as the market demands, Suhail al-Mazrouei told a news conference at a gathering of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in Kuwait. “What if the 1.2 million barrels of cuts are not enough? I am telling you that if it is not, we will meet and see what is enough and we will do it,” Mazrouei said.

Still, oil prices fell on Friday to their lowest since the third quarter of 2017 as global oversupply kept buyers away from the market ahead of holidays over the next two weeks. The UAE minister said a joint OPEC and non-OPEC monitoring committee would meet in Baku at the end of February or the beginning of March, as producers aim to return the oil market to the balance reached in the summer of 2018. Mazrouei was speaking at a joint news conference with the Iraqi and Algerian energy ministers as well as Saudi Arabia’s OPEC governor, Adeeb Al-Aama.

Iraqi Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban said there was an expectation that the oil output cut decision could be renewed, adding that Iraq would be willing to extend the production agreement in April. OPEC is set to hold its next oil output policy decision meeting that month in Vienna.