Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva related his conversation with Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.
Sylva stated that the top producer of oil among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members is ready to go to any length to stabilize the oil market.
“He assured me that they are very ready to even cut deeper,” Sylva told Bloomberg on Tuesday. The official Saudi Press Agency reported the two ministers (Sylva and Salman) discussed “the situation of the oil market and joint cooperation among OPEC countries to maintain its stability.”
This is also in light of the OPEC and its Russia-led non-OPEC partners’ meeting.
Oil Price reported that speculation is already rife that the allies will have little choice but to extend the cuts currently expiring in March 2020 and possibly to cut even deeper, considering the slowing oil demand growth and still persistent oversupply on the market.
Russia, however, is still non-committal, as it has been ahead of all previous OPEC+ meetings. Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said earlier this week that it was too early to talk about a potential deepening of the cuts because the production cut mechanism is not limitless.
ING also suggested that OPEC and allies need to take further action in December to support prices and draw down inventories, but convincing all producers to cut even more could be a challenge.
