The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is assiduously working with aim at finding solution to the oil glut which is one of the headwinds that have been confronting the member nations since 2014.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources,Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, who made the disclosure, said that Oil prices have slumped by more than 70 per cent to near $30 a barrel over the past 18 months as OPEC, led by top producer Saudi Arabia, sought to drive higher-cost producers out of the market by refusing to cut production despite a supply glut.
According to Kachikwu, “there’s increased conversation going on. I think when we met in December … they (OPEC members) were hardly talking to one another. Everyone was protecting their own positional logic,” Nigerian oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachiwku told Reuters in an interview.
“Now I think you have cross-logic … they are looking at what are the deficiencies, what is the optimum.”
Struggling oil producers have made repeated calls for an emergency OPEC meeting, but Kachikwu said that the timing had not been right. The cartel’s next regular meeting is in June.
“We haven’t been sure that if we held those (emergency) meetings that we could actually walk away with some consensus,” Kachikwu said.
“A lot of barrels are tumbling out of the market from non-OPEC members, so the Saudi philosophy is obviously working. But it’s not influencing the price higher, which means that whether we like it or not some barrels are coming in from … members and non-members to cover whatever is dropping out.”
Kachikwu said that he would meet his Qatari and Saudi counterparts soon to discuss the situation.
“Have we got to the point where we can say there is a definite strategy? In terms of production reduction or freezing, no, I don’t think we have got there. But there is a lot of energy (behind the idea),” Kachikwu said.
“As you get closer to the statutory (OPEC) meeting dates … you are going to see a lot more people get active in those conversations and try to find solutions.”
