Oil Producers, Led by Saudi Arabia and OPEC, Extend Cuts
Despite rising prices, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and the cartel’s de facto leader, had insisted
that extending the cuts, which were set to expire at the end of March, was necessary to further reduce what Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi oil minister, said were still high stockpiles of oil.
An extension, he said, “should help put a floor under prices.”
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil and OPEC’s de facto leader, wanted the meeting’s outcome to send a strong signal to the energy markets
that the cartel’s efforts to reduce supplies and push up prices would continue.
“In order to continue meeting our shared goals, a good deal more hard work and commitment is essential.”
Having been badly burned in recent years by low prices — they fell to around $30 a barrel in early 2016
— most of the group seems inclined to at least verbally commit to going along with Saudi wishes.
In the short term, his ambitions depend on robust oil prices,
and the Saudi oil minister, Khalid al-Falih, has spent the past year lobbying OPEC colleagues and other producers like Russia to agree to production cuts and stick to them.
VIENNA — OPEC and other major oil producers wrapped up a deal on Thursday to extend
output cuts through the end of 2018, part of efforts to bolster prices.
In a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, the Iraqi oil minister, Jabbar Ali Hussein al-Luiebi,
said his country, now OPEC’s second-largest producer, would continue to support the cuts.