Suhail al-Mazrouei, the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has said that the OPEC+ measures currently in place will suffice to support the market for crude oil, at least for now.
The OPEC+ group comprises the member countries of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, plus some other like-minded oil-producing countries, most notably Russia. While it collectively produces 40% of the world’s crude oil, it does not include other major producers like the US, where shale operators like Chevron and ExxonMobil, the makers of the Texaco and Mobil lubricant ranges, have made the country the world’s biggest oil producer again.
In Goa, India, which was hosting a G20 working group meeting, al-Mazrouei said to Reuters:
“What we are doing is sufficient as we say today. But we are constantly meeting and if there is a requirement to do anything else then during those meetings, we will pick it up. We are always a phone call away from each other.”
Oil prices have seen some support in recent days, with Brent crude trading over $80 per barrel, indicating that the last set of production cuts may be starting to take effect. Nevertheless, al-Mazrouei said he was more concerned about too little investment in the sector than he was about demand. He said only a few countries were making the expensive decision to invest in increasing their capacity. In OPEC, the UAE is one of the few countries with unused capacity that it can tap into to pump more crude oil if needed.
