Oil ministers from the OPEC+ coalition held an unscheduled conference call on Tuesday to discuss the collapse in crude prices, though a closing statement signaled they didn’t settle on any new policy measures. Alarmed by the market’s unrelenting plunge, despite their announcement of record production cuts earlier this month, several producers held informal talks “to brainstorm the current dramatic oil market situation,” the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said on Twitter. They reaffirmed their commitment to the curbs and agreed to hold regular calls to consult on the market.
Crude prices have continued to slump, even though the 23 OPEC+ nations intend to cut global supply by 10%, with futures falling below zero in New York on Monday for the first time ever. The targeted output reduction of 9.7 million barrels a day isn’t nearly enough to counter lost demand as the coronavirus outbreak forces countries to lock down.
“We continue to see extraordinary turmoil in oil markets in this Black April for the industry,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said on Twitter. “The OPEC+ supply cut is a solid start but insufficient to rebalance the market immediately due to the scale of the drop in demand.”