Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi has said that OPEC would not take sole responsibility for propping up the oil price adding that more cooperation from producers outside the cartel was needed, according to Reuters’ reports.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called on non-OPEC countries to reduce output, which it hoped would help the market to stabilise, but that plan has not worked yet, the minister said.
“Today the situation is hard. We tried, we held meetings and we did not succeed because countries (outside OPEC) were insisting that OPEC carry the burden and we refuse that OPEC bears the responsibility,” Naimi told reporters on the sidelines of an energy conference in Riyadh.
“The production of OPEC is 30% of the market, 70% from non-OPEC…everybody is supposed to participate if we want to improve prices,” he added.
In November last year, the OPEC group led by Saudi Arabia decided to maintain production, attracting criticism from fellow producers and neighbouring states, some of which said the decision was politically motivated.
However, Naimi denied any such claims saying that “politics played no role in the Kingdom’s oil policy”.
“There is no conspiracy and we tried to correct all the things that have been said but nobody listens,” he told a conference in Riyadh.
“We are not against anybody we are with whoever wants to maintain market stability and the balance between supply and demand and (with regards to) price the market decides it,” Naimi said.
He said Saudi Arabia’s oil production currently stood at around 10mn barrels per day (bpd), and could go up in case of demand surge.
The Kingdom’s current output is near an all-time high and some 350,000 bpd above its February figure.
When asked the question if Saudi Arabia planned to expand production capacity beyond 12.5mn bpd, Naimi said no such plans were in place due to a lack of demand.
The minister’s statement came at a time when OPEC governor Mohammed al-Madi said it would be difficult for oil to reach the $100- $120 mark again.
Oil prices have recovered since January to over $60 a barrel, but dropped again to around $55 after the U.S. reported bigger than expected crude build triggering a renewed wave of concerns of an oversupply.
