The UAE energy minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said OPEC will not to cut output even if oil prices fall as low as $40 a barrel, Bloomberg has reported.
Mazrouei told reporters at a conference in Dubai that the Organisaiton of Petroleum Exporting Countries will not immediately change its decision to keep it collective output target unchanged at 30mn barrels a day.
He also added that the group will wait at least three months before considering an emergency meeting and that current conditions do not justify an extraordinary meeting.
For now, an official meeting has been scheduled on the 5th of June.
“We are not going to change our minds because the prices went to $60 or to $40,” Mazrouei said.
“We’re not targeting a price; the market will stabilise itself.”
“We need to wait for at least a quarter” to consider an urgent session, he concluded.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg OPEC’s 12 members pumped 30.56mn barrels of oil per day in November, exceeding their target for a sixth consecutive month.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries supplies about 40% of the world’s oil.
On Tuesday the Brent crude, benchmark for the oil price, closed at $62.34 a barrel- the lowest since July 2009.
An increase of about 6mn barrels a day in non-OPEC supply, together with speculation in oil markets, triggered the recent drop in prices, OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri said, without specifying dates for the higher output by producers outside the group such as the US and Russia.
He added that prices will rebound soon due to changes in the global economic cycle.
“We will not have a real picture about oil prices until the end of the first half of 2015,” El-Badri said. Price will have settled by the second half of next year, and OPEC will have a clear idea by then about “the required measures,” he said.
