Falling oil prices have increased concerns among oil producing nations but the Kuwaiti oil minister Ali al-Omair is putting a brave face. He stated that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC will not cut production or hold an emergency meeting to discuss about falling global oil prices.
Omair was speaking to Reuters and in response to a question about the situation arising by the fact that Russia and Mexico (Both non OPEC countries) decide to cut production.
This is what he had to say -“I don’t think we need to cut — we gave a chance to others, they were not willing to do so. OPEC will not cut and nothing will happen until June. (There will be) no emergency meeting before that.”
The oil industry is facing one of the biggest slumps in its business in recent times. Saudi Arabia, one of the top petroleum exporters, said on Sunday that it will not cut production even if non OPEC members do so to ride out the biggest slump in years.
Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister told reporters very categorically that Saudi Arabia is not going to cut production to prop up the falling crude prices even if non OPEC countries do so. He said that the current level of oil prices is not very pleasing but things will improve in the coming months. Al-Naimi blamed speculators for the fall in prices to half their levels of six months ago. He also cited the lack of cooperation between OPEC and Non OPEC oil producers for the current sorry state of affairs.
This is for the second time in 3 days that the kingdom has stated that it will not scale down production to bolster falling crude prices and instead will have the market to stabilize on their own. Somewhat similar sentiments were echoed by Arab oil ministers at a conference in the United Arab Emirates capital.
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