Top oil officials from Saudi Arabia, Russia and several key OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) members will meet today for their highest-level discussion in month to tackle the oil supply glut, according to a Reuters report.
The talks in the Qatari capital Doha, which had been kept under wraps until recent days, involve powerful Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak, sources told Reuters.
They will be joined by Venezuela’s Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino, who has in recent weeks been visiting major oil producers to rally support for the idea of ‘freezing’ production at current levels in an effort to halt a downward spiral in prices, sources have said.
Also expected to attend is the oil minister of Qatar, which holds the rotating presidency of OPEC this year, an important role in coordinating consultations among members and suggestions for extraordinary meetings of the group.
The agenda for today’s meeting was unclear, and the sources declined to provide any further details on it. Del Pino made no comment yesterday when he arrived in Qatar.
Within OPEC, there is a growing consensus that a decision must be reached on how to prop up prices, Nigerian Oil Minister and OPEC president Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said in an interview late last week, revealing that he too would be travelling to Doha to meet with his Saudi and Qatari counterparts.
Much has changed since the group’s fractious meeting in early December, the last big gathering of key oil ministers, when members “were hardly talking to one another. Everyone was protecting their own positional logic,” Kachikwu said.
Though absent from the attendee list, Iran would likely show some restraint under any accord, tempering its goal of quickly pumping an additional one million barrels per day now that it has been relieved of sanctions.
Naimi and Novak, the top officials from the two biggest oil exporters, must overcome a trust issue dating back to 2001, when Saudi Arabia pushed through a global deal to curb output from OPEC and non-OPEC nations.
