Guyana Rejects Offer To Join OPEC: WSJ

OPEC is courting Guyana to become a member to extend its influence after the South American country made a transformational oil find, but so far it has rejected offers to join the producer group according to WSJ.

• The Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman and Haitham al-Ghais, OPEC’s secretary-general, invited Guyana to join the cartel in recent months according to two OPEC delegates.
• Guyana is planning to boost its oil production by 1mbpd by 2028.
• Guyana has so far chosen not to join the producer group. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told the Wall Street Journal that the country needs to maximize production—and profits—in the short term, given that oil demand is expected to decline in coming decades.
• “Right now, the idea is to get as much of these resources out of the ground as quickly as possible given that we are not sure of the window we have in the future,” Jagdeo said.
• Joining OPEC would risk Guyana becoming beholden to efforts by Saudi Arabia and other members who have worked together on-and-off in recent years to curb global supplies and prop up prices, he added.