OPEC is not expected to cut production quotas, the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil ministers said Wednesday as the producer group met to take stock of a market that has seen crude prices climb amid signs of a global economic recovery, Forbes reported.
The comments by Saudi Arabia's Ali Naimi and Kuwait's Sheik Ahmed Al Abullah Al Sabah offered the clearest indications yet that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was willing to leave existing output targets unchanged, despite a world market awash in crude.
"All I know is economic growth is helping prices," Naimi told reporters as ministers from the 12-member bloc kicked off their meeting. Asked if OPEC would announce a change in output targets, Naimi said bluntly: "No."
OPEC ministers have said they will focus on boosting compliance, which has been waning as prices have climbed to over $70 per barrel - roughly twice their level in December, when the group sought to take the market by surprise by announcing a 4.2 million barrel per day cut in production from September 2008 levels. That cut, however, included 2 million barrels per day that had already been announced at earlier meetings that year and the net effect was that crude prices slipped.
Since then, prices have slowly rebounded, buoyed in part by OPEC's push for greater compliance among its members. Analysts, however, say that cohesion is slipping, and is down to about 70 percent.
Kuwait oil minister says OPEC cut not expected
OPEC is not expected to cut production quotas, the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil ministers said Wednesday as the producer group met to take stock of a market that has seen crude prices climb amid signs of a global economic recovery.
