Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 3
By Taleh Mursagulov - Trend:
For Qatar, the withdrawal from OPEC in conditions when a new agreement has already been announced is beneficial, Deputy Director of the Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA) Vasily Tanurkov said.
He noted that Qatar is a very small oil producer (about 600,000 barrels per day) and the country isn’t able to increase production in volumes significant for the market and its withdrawal from OPEC cannot have any significant effect on the price.
"At the same time, Qatar’s relations with a number of OPEC members have already been completely ruined [a blockade was imposed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as the non-OPEC countries Egypt and Bahrain], that is, Qatar's decision to leave OPEC has no negative consequences from the point of view of international relations, either," he added.
Tanurkov noted that it isn’t worth expecting any serious negative impact on oil prices.
"So far, no domino effect and further collapse of the cartel can be talked about, especially since earlier there was news that Libya and Nigeria may join the OPEC agreement on production freeze," he said.
Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi has earlier stated that Qatar is withdrawing from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as of January 2019.
Commenting on the decision, the minister noted that Qatar wants to focus on the production of natural and liquefied gas.
OPEC is an international intergovernmental association created by oil producing states to control crude production quotas. OPEC includes Algeria, Angola, Venezuela, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Congo, Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, the UAE, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador. Members of the organization control about two thirds of world oil reserves and they account for up to 45 percent of all world production and half of exports.
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