OPEC+ Committed to Current OPEC+ Deal: Saudi Energy Minister

The uncertainty in the oil markets at present means the “sensible and only course of action” for OPEC+ is to stick to the production cuts agreed last October according to Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in an interview with Energy Intelligence this week.

• The minister cited China’s pace of recovery and central bank policy in other key markets as some of the biggest uncertainties in global oil demand growth at present.
• “We need to ascertain that the positive indicators are sustainable.” he said.
• He said that building spare global capacity was crucial to develop a safety net for the oil markets. “I have repeatedly warned that global demand growth will outpace current global spare capacity, while emergency reserves are at a historic low.” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said.
• “In Saudi Arabia, we have proactively embarked on expanding our capacity to 13.3 million b/d by 2027. The expansion is already under way in the engineering phase and the first increment is expected to come onstream in 2025.” he added.