Saudi oil minister hopes OPEC, allies can ease output curbs in 2019

Heinz-Peter Bader | Reuters

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih listens during a news conference after an OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria, November 30, 2017.

Saudi Arabia hopes OPEC and its allies will be able to relax production curbs next year and create a permanent framework to stabilize oil markets after the current supply cut deal ends this year, its oil minister said on Saturday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is reducing output by about 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) as part of a deal with Russia and other non-OPEC producers.

The pact, aimed at propping oil prices, began in January 2017 and will run until the end of 2018.

Saudi Arabian oil minister

Khalid al-Falih said OPEC and its allies were committed to bringing balance and stability to the market and that he hoped it would be possible to ease output curbs next year.

“A study is taking place and once we know exactly what balancing the market will entail we will announce what is the next step. The next step may be easing of the production constraints,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

“My estimation is that it will happen sometime in 2019. But we don’t know when and we don’t know how”.

Falih said OPEC was determined to translate the success of the deal to curb supply into a permanent framework with other major producers.

“What we want is an evergreen framework that brings producers from OPEC and non-OPEC (countries) together in a market monitoring fashion that allows us to take quick decisions,” he said.