Category: Global

VIENNA To hear OPEC ministers in Vienna last week, one would think the cartel’s battle for market share is a complete success and oil prices are now firmly anchored where they are. "The strategy is working… It will take time for markets to rebalance," was the mantra from OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi and his peers. However, the oil markets have probably become even less easier to read now than in November last year when OPEC launched its shock strategy of adding barrels to the already oversupplied market in the hope of winning back market share from higher-cost rivals such as U.S. shale oil. If anything, the list of uncertainties that could pull oil prices both ways from OPEC’s current favorite price range of $60-$70 per barrel has grown longer. It includes the performance of the U.S. oil industry, the return of Iran to oil markets, […]

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As expected, OPEC ministers agreed to maintain official crude output at 30 million b/d, with the oil producer group’s Gulf Arab members particularly upbeat about the decision. "Same ceiling, 30 million b/d," Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Naimi told reporters as he left OPEC’s secretariat in the Austrian capital. "You will be surprised by how amicable the meeting was," Naimi said, adding that OPEC would next meet on December 4. UAE oil minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said he was "very happy," while Kuwait’s Ali al-Omair emerged giving the thumbs-up sign. "It is a very good one," Omair said. Analysis continues below… Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry players, upstream and downstream markets, refineries, midstream transportation and financial reports Supply and demand trends, government actions, exploration and technology Daily futures summary Weekly API statistics, and much more And Qatar’s Mohammed al-Sada described the […]

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VIENNA—OPEC on Friday said the cartel would keep its collective output level unchanged at 30 million barrels a day, the second time in six months it decided to take no action amid a global glut of crude and weak oil prices. The decision amounted to an acknowledgment that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ role had fundamentally changed in the past year with a flood of American oil extracted from shale rock . No longer can the group—which pumps about one in three barrels of oil consumed each day—throttle back on output to support prices that have fallen from $114 a barrel to less than $63 today. “The reality now is that we cannot have this $100 (a barrel) anymore. This is a fact. We have less value for our barrels,” OPEC Secretary General Abdallah Salem el-Badri said at a news conference. Friday’s decision affirms its decision last […]

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The last time OPEC met, its decision to leave output unchanged cast doubt on the group’s relevance. That was a little premature. From the ministers’ market-moving comments to the array of oil executives gathered in Vienna to court new ventures, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries showed no loss of stature in the run-up to Friday’s meeting, at which it again decided to maintain its current output target. While OPEC has ceded the role of adjusting supply to balance the market, its strategy of keeping up production is still driving prices lower now — and possibly higher later on. “Reports of their death are greatly exaggerated,” Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London, said in an e-mail. “OPEC is still relevant because by driving down prices, and crowding out investment in higher-cost basins, they are sowing the seeds of the future price rally.” […]

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VIENNA Oil group OPEC agreed to stick by its policy of unconstrained output for another six months on Friday, setting aside warnings of a second lurch lower in prices as some members such as Iran look to ramp up exports. Concluding a meeting with no apparent dissent, Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi said OPEC had rolled over its current output ceiling, renewing support for the shock market treatment it doled out late last year when the world’s top supplier said it would no longer cut output to keep prices high. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet again on Dec. 4, Naimi said. With oil prices having rebounded by more than a third after hitting a six-year low of $45 a barrel in January, officials meeting in Vienna saw little reason to tinker with a strategy that seems to have resurrected moribund growth in world oil […]

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VIENNA OPEC is set to carry on pumping oil nearly flat-out for months more, content that last year’s shock market therapy has revived moribund demand and knocked back growing competition. With oil prices having stabilized, for now, at around $65 a barrel, some $20 off their January lows, there’s little appetite within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to modify production limits, as some analysts have suggested is an outside possibility. "There is consensus among Gulf OPEC countries, and others, to keep the ceiling unchanged," a senior Gulf OPEC delegate told Reuters late on Tuesday after an informal meeting of the four core Gulf Arab OPEC members earlier in the day. The group meets on Friday following a two-day seminar featuring the chief executives of the world’s biggest energy groups, including BP ( BP.L ) and Exxon ( XOM.N ), companies whose fortunes have been abruptly altered by […]

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Myra Members of the Organization of the Exporting Countries are expected to leave their oil-production ceiling unchanged at their semiannual meeting on Friday, but what they decide not to do is equally important. Analysts widely expect the oil-producing cartel to stand pat on the 30 million barrels-per-day output ceiling it is had in place since 2012, even though various market estimates show that its members have been producing about one million barrels a day above that level. Talk ahead of the summit has been centered on OPEC’s desire to defend its valuable market share. The cartel left its production target unchanged at its last meeting in November, despite a plunge in global oil prices LCON5, -2.70% CLN5, -2.66% and some analysts fear that if OPEC stands pat again, that’ll condemn the market to an oil-supply glut for years . Retaining market share is obviously a key objective for OPEC […]

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VIENNA—The world’s biggest oil companies have taken a beating since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries let prices fall last year in favor of pumping more crude, injecting a note of tension into a long-standing marriage of convenience. Oil company earnings plunged 50% in the first quarter from a year earlier. Some of the industry’s biggest projects are on ice, and a new mood of uncertainty hangs over the sector as it goes through a rough patch after years of stability. The meeting of the cartel this week amounts to a counseling session of sorts for global integrated oil companies and OPEC, as they all converge on Vienna. But no one expects the good times to return soon. OPEC, at its meeting here on Friday, appears likely to stay the course it set last November, keeping production levels the same . Some oil company executives see a rocky […]

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VIENNA—OPEC oil ministers expressed optimism about their strategy of pumping more crude oil and fighting for market share, amid expectations they will stick to their production target when they meet at the end of the week. “In terms of the global trends of energy outlook, the future looks very positive. The global economy is growing,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told an oil-and-gas seminar hosted by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in the Austrian capital. In a sign of how much things have changed for OPEC, oil ministers from some its most vulnerable nations appeared to come to terms with prices below $100 a barrel, signaling that the group may have put some of its rancor behind it. OPEC ministers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates spoke Wednesday morning at the seminar, along with representatives of industry watchdogs and chief executive officers from energy […]

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