Minister of Energy and Industry, H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada addressing the media after an Opec meeting in Algiers.
DOHA: The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) will decide the quota of each member state on November 30 after considering recommendations of the high-level technical committee.
This was announced by Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry, H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, who is the current President of the Conference of Opec, in a joint press conference with Algerian Energy Minister, Noureddine Bouterfa, following the meeting of Opec member states in Algiers.
Dr Al Sada also announced that the organisation opted for an Opec-14 production target ranging between 32.5 and 33.0 million barrel per day, in order to accelerate the ongoing drawdown of the stock overhang and bring the rebalancing forward.
The Opec President said that the formation of a high-level technical committee to study and propose the member states quotas, and to coordinate with the producing countries outside Opec to support restoring the balance of the market and report to the next regular Opec meeting, to be held in Vienna on November 30.
He expressed confidence that the high-level technical committee will propose the appropriate date to begin the application of production quotas, noting that the participants in the consultative meeting agreed to turn it into a formal extraordinary meeting.
Explaining the decision, Al Sada said that the meeting was held amidst positive signs in the market, especially that balance will be restored inevitably, adding that a lot of work had been done to converge views among members.
He called on Opec members and other actors in the market (from outside the organisation) to coordinate in order to restore balance to the market effectively, and assured that the balance in the oil market will be achieved inevitably, but it must be accelerated through the consensus of views and adjusting production mechanisms.
For his part, the Algerian Energy Minister described Opec decision as ‘historic’ and stressed the importance of Opec’s key role in maintaining the stability of the market.
Qatar played a key role in reaching the agreement through the creation of the Doha platform for dialogue and rapprochement between the views of the top oil producers in the world, QNA reported yesterday.
→ See also page 17