Mubasher: Saudi Arabia’s oil minister on Sunday expressed optimism about continued commitment to the oil supply cut agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC members.
The Saudi-dominated oil cartel last December agreed with Russia and its allies on significantly cutting oil production in a bid to mop up a global supply glut.
“I am obviously optimistic that implementation of our OPEC+ agreement will improve, it’s already strong by historical standards,” Reuters reported, citing Saudi minister Khalid al-Falih as saying on the sidelines of the joint ministerial monitoring committee meeting in Baku.
Although total conformity with oil production cuts in the first two months of 2019 is less than levels seen in the previous two years, the oil producers “will catch up very soon,” al-Falih told reporters.
“We will not allow energy security to be challenged by any event, but at the same time we will not leave investors, and oil and gas companies to stay bewildered not knowing what tomorrow is going,” he added.
For his part, OPEC secretary general Mohammed Barkindo said further investments are needed to ensure stability in the oil industry after a slippage seen in the previous years, according to Reuters.
“A number of challenges are arising from the down cycle that we have seen, and at the top of that list is an issue of investments. We have seen investments contract for couple of years and even at the moment the rebound is very, very minimal,” Barkindo said.
He also touted significant achievements made by major oil producing countries to skew imbalance between the supply and demand on the global oil market.
Barkindo said he would welcome greater engagement with the US to content with industry issues.
The global oil and gas industry needs to inject as much as $20 trillion in investments over the next 25 years to meet forecast growth in demand and offset the natural maturity of fields, Amin Nasser, CEO of the Saudi oil giant Aramco, previously said.
