After the United Arab Emirates blocked an agreement earlier this month, the world’s major oil producers will meet later on Sunday, and observers are expected to increase production moderately from August.
The OPEC+ group’s several days of negotiations to continue further relaxation of production cuts ended on July 5, but no agreement was reached, which exposed the dispute between Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and its arrogant neighbor, the United Arab Emirates.
Since May, the 23-member group (which also includes Russia) has increased oil production bit by bit after cutting oil production due to the coronavirus pandemic hitting demand more than a year ago.
If a new agreement is reached, the top oil producers will increase production by 400,000 barrels per day from August to December to help promote the recovery of the global economy as the pandemic eases.
It also tried to extend the deadline for limiting production from April 2022 to the end of 2022.
But in a rare challenge to OPEC leader Saudi Arabia, the UAE criticized the proposed transaction as “unfair” and caused a deadlock.
According to the OPEC secretariat based in Vienna, the OPEC+ meeting starts at 1000 GMT, and the post-meeting press conference is scheduled to take place one hour later.
Observers said that the arrangement of the press conference so fast is an encouraging sign that the transaction is nearing completion.
“The OPEC+ press conference is scheduled for 1 p.m. Vienna time, which is one hour after the start of the meeting. If an agreement has not been reached, it means that the agreement is nearing completion. A series of talks were held on Saturday to try to close the gap,” Herman tweeted Wang is the editor of S&P Global Platts, specializing in reporting on the energy industry.
Due to concerns about the global economy, oil prices have plummeted in April 2020, as the coronavirus has spread worldwide and hit global consumption, transportation, and supply chains.
OPEC+ decided to withdraw 9.7 million barrels per day from the market and gradually resume supply before the end of April 2022. The benchmark oil price rebounded as a result.
Economic competition is at the core of the discord among OPEC members, because the Gulf countries are facing the beginning of the end of the oil era, trying to profit from their huge oil reserves.
Disagreements between Saudi Arabia and the UAE-once inseparable allies-are usually resolved within the palace walls and rarely made public.
