Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 6
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
The fact that non-OPEC countries have increased production and the expected increase in production in 2019 will affect the prices, and thus, OPEC members should decrease production volumes, Iran's former representative at OPEC, Mohammad Ali Khatibi said, Trend reports referring to Iranian media.
Latest reports indicate that non-OPEC countries will increase production by 2.3 million barrels and this unprecedented growth will be like tsunami among non-OPEC countries, Khatibi said.
Despite the growth in production, worldwide demand will increase only by 1.3 million barrels and that's why the non-OPEC countries will have one million barrel of unnecessary surplus, Khatibi said, adding that these trends already have affected the market with price decrease.
If OPEC is willing to keep the prices at the current level, then should decrease the production by one million barrels, he underlined.
As it comes to the prices, we need to wait until OPEC holds a meeting to decide whether to increase or decrease production values, only then we can forecast the prices of the upcoming year, Khatibi said.
While commenting on Qatar's withdrawal from OPEC, he noted that when a country leaves OPEC, one needs to pay attention to its production volumes.
Despite its large gas production, Qatar's oil production is below one million barrel, and such countries are not few in OPEC, he added.