Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
OPEC may announce a short extension of the oil output deal, as there is no chance there will be a six-month extension, Sam Barden, the director of SBI Markets, an international commodity trading and advisory company, told Trend May 1.
Regarding the possibility of Iraq’s exemption from the OPEC deal, the expert noted that alongside with Iran, Iraq also wants to increase its share of the global oil export market and will likely increase it.
“OPEC countries agree on extension of the deal, but Iraq and Iran will not be part of it,” said Barden.
The expert believes that oil prices remain weak, with a risk for a lower price, but in reality, will likely stay around the current level.
In December 2016, OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached their first deal since 2001 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices.
OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1 with top exporter Saudi Arabia cutting as much as 486,000 barrels per day.
Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from Jan. 1 for six months, extendable for another six months.
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