UAE Joins Consensus to Extend Oil Output Cuts

UAE said OPEC and allied oil producers should extend their production cuts beyond March to help re-balance the market.

The U.A.E. favors maintaining the cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the first quarter, Minister of Energy Suhail Al Mazrouei said. The fourth-largest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries staked out its position a day after OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said that caps on output are the “only viable option” to restore stability to the market.

“Definitely there’s a need for extension,” Mazrouei said Tuesday at an energy conference in Abu Dhabi.

Output cuts by OPEC and other producers such as Russia and Oman have started to pay off, with benchmark Brent crude trading close to a two-year high. OPEC will meet in Vienna on Nov. 30 to review the pact on cuts, which took effect in January, and possibly extend it. Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq already signaled they would be open to extending the curbs.

Oman, a member of the producer committee monitoring the output cuts, wants to prolong them beyond March and sees producers extending the limits until the end of 2018, Oil Minister Mohammed Al Rumhy told reporters on Monday in Abu Dhabi. The largest Arab oil producer outside of OPEC doesn’t want to delay a decision to extend the cuts and supports a Saudi proposal to prolong them at the producers’ meeting this month, he said.

See full article on Bloomberg, by Salma El Wardany and Mahmoud Habboush, November 14, 2017.