The 168th Meeting of the Conference of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) wrapped off on Friday, 4th December, 2015, in Vienna, Austria without yielding any fruitful results.
Accordingly, in time with the 50 per cent decline in oil process and lack of balance between supply and demand, some OPEC members like Iran and Venezuela had called for the restoration of quotas system as well as lowering of the production ceiling.
Eventually, after several hours of negotiations, OPEC oil ministers could not reach an agreement for the production ceiling to remain unchanged in the range of 30 million barrels per day.
Members further decided that OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri’s office will be extended for a period of six months in the organization.
According to secondary sources, currently, OPEC countries are producing 31.3 million barrels of crude per day which marks 1.3 million barrels more than the ceiling set for the organization.
Saudi Arabia along with Kuwait, UAE and even Qatar consist the main supporters of preserving the status quo of supply and demand as well as the price of crude oil in the market and are consequently opposed to any reduction in production rates.
Despite many member countries plan to lower the production ceiling, Saudi Arabia has demanded reduction in Russia’s production as a prerequisite for decreasing its production, a request which Russia would not concur with.
Meanwhile, the General Director of OPEC Affairs in Iran’s Oil Ministry Mehdi Asali had announced the possibility of change in OPEC’s quota system by joining Indonesia at Friday’s meeting stressing that Iran would not vote for Saudi candidate in electing the new secretary general of OPEC.
In response to comments by the Nigerian secretary general of OPEC before the 168th meeting, Iranian had stressed that Iran’s production will increase after the lifting of sanctions calling for a return of OPEC quota system.
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