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Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi said there was no need to reduce production as peak winter demand in the northern hemisphere had not started and OPEC’s official oil price band was still well below current prices.
“The winter is coming, our band is still $22-$28, so why should we do anything?” Naimi said.
OPEC ministers from Iran, Venezuela, Qatar, Libya and United Arab Emirates have all said in the past week that they want to focus on paring down excess supply above OPEC’S official ceiling. The 10 OPEC members with quotas produced about 28 million barrels a day last month, about 1m b/d above the self-imposed limit.
Most of the burden of any OPEC output cut would fall on Saudi Arabia as it has been producing about 9.5m b/d since August, 890,000 b/d above its quota limit.
OPEC is meeting in Cairo tomorrow.
