TheCable

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) met with delegations from Nigeria and Libya at the weekend to discuss the possibility of oil cuts.

The meeting which held in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday and Sunday was attended by Khalid A. Al-Falih, OPEC president and minister of energy, Saudi Arabia; Mohammad Barkindo, OPEC secretary general, and members of the joint technical committee (JTC).

The meeting was held as a preparatory meeting for the fourth meeting of the joint ministerial monitoring committee (JMMC) scheduled to take place on Monday, 24 July 2017.

According to the OPEC secretariat, the president of the conference and the delegations reviewed the two countries’ current oil market outlooks and discussed the future prospects and challenges that may lie ahead.

The president also reviewed Nigeria and Libya’s production recovery plans, including the challenges currently faced by the countries.

Both countries had been exempted from the first and second cuts deal sealed by OPEC and non-OPEC member states, but the JTC and JMMC are considering the outlook for the countries and exploring ways to achieve stability.

Additionally, Issam Almarzooq, minister of oil and minister of electricity and water of Kuwait and chairman of the JMMC have been participating in a series of phone consultations over the weekend with oil ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC producing countries that are part of the Declaration of Cooperation to discuss oil market prospects and challenges for the second half of the year.

The president of the conference also plans to meet separately with Alexander Novak, the minister of energy of the Russian Federation and Mustapha Guitouni, minister of energy of Algeria ahead of Monday’s meeting of the JMMC.