Gulf oil producers will not propose a production cut at OPEC’s meeting in Vienna today, Reuters reports.
A Gulf OPEC delegate told Reuters that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE had reached a consensus not to cut oil output.
Three OPEC delegates separately told Reuters they believed OPEC was unlikely to take any action at the meeting today after Russia said it would not cut output either.
“The GCC reached a consensus,” Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters in Vienna. “We are very confident that OPEC will have a unified position.”
“The power of convincing will prevail tomorrow… I am confident that OPEC is capable of taking a very unified position,” Naimi added.
The OPEC meeting is one of its most crucial in recent years, with oil having tumbled to below $78 a barrel due to the U.S. shale boom and slower economic growth in China and Europe.
Cutting output unilaterally would effectively mean for OPEC, which accounts for a third of global oil output, a further loss of market share to North American shale oil producers.
Naimi said earlier on Wednesday he expected the oil market “to stabilise itself eventually”.
The UAE oil minister agreed with his Saudi counterpart, saying oil prices would soon stabilise.
“This is not a crisis that requires us to panic … we have seen (prices) way lower,” UAE Oil Minister Suhail bin Mohammed al-Mazroui told Reuters.
“The oversupply came from the evolution of the unconventional oil production … I think everyone needs to play a role in balancing the market, not OPEC unilaterally,” he said.
