Saudi Arabia's energy minister Khalid al-Falih said there is a consensus among producers to keep pushing for a reduction in oil inventories into the second half of this year.
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Cadastre-se agora"We want a balanced market," Falih said after the conclusion of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. "If there is a need to revisit target production we can re-adjust our targets but don't anticipate that will be needed."
The JMMC asked the OPEC secretariat to "continue to monitor and analyze oil market developments and, particularly, oil inventory projections in the coming weeks."
Ahead of the meeting, Saudi and UAE ministers were advocating for an extension to oil production cuts set to expire in June, pointing to rising global inventories, even in the face of tighter US sanctions on Iran and the summer peak demand season just ahead.
"Unfortunately today not only fundamentals affect the market but also geopolitics," Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said after the meeting.
The Russian minister said there are many factors impacting the market from sanctions to geopolitical issues which necessitate remaining flexible when it comes to decision making.
The OPEC/non-OPEC group will decide at a June meeting in Vienna whether to extend the current cuts of 1.2 million b/d that have been in place since January.
Producers are cutting output just as the US is tightening the noose around Iran's oil industry and slapping sanctions on Venezuela amid instability in Libya.
Falih and other ministers said the market remained well-supplied despite the disruptions and sanctions.
His views were echoed by UAE oil minister Suhail al-Mazrouei, who noted inventory levels of refined products in some countries are increasing and need to be monitored.
"This is an important period to look at the market, to look at the supply and demand and inventory building taking place and the increase in production from some countries outside the alliance, such as US," Mazrouei said.
"Despite the reduction in their production (Iran, Venezuela and Libya), we haven't seen shortages or major shortages in the market and the inventories are still at a level higher than five years."
OPEC aims to bring OECD inventories down to their five-year average.
--Dania Saadi, dania.el.saadi@spglobal.com
--Herman Wang, herman.wang@spglobal.com
--Edited by Claudia Carpenter, claudia.carpenter@spglobal.com