MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

OPEC+ wants to further cut output to support oil price, but admits it no longer controls the market

UAE Energy Minister Suheil al-Mazrouei said the group would do “whatever necessary” to rebalance the crude market

Top oil producers will consider fresh output cuts at a meeting this week, but analysts are doubtful they will succeed in bolstering crude prices dented by the US-China trade war.

The OPEC petroleum exporters' cartel and key non-OPEC members want to halt a slide in prices that has continued despite previous production cuts and US sanctions that have squeezed supply from Iran and Venezuela.

Analysts say the OPEC+ group's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which monitors a supply cut deal reached last year, has limited options when it meets in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.

UAE Energy Minister Suheil al-Mazrouei said on Sunday the group would do “whatever necessary” to rebalance the crude market, but admitted that the issue was not entirely in the hands of the world's top producers.

Speaking at a press conference in Abu Dhabi ahead of the World Energy Congress, to start Monday, he said the oil market is no longer governed by supply and demand but is being influenced more by US-China trade tensions and geopolitical factors.

The minister said that although further cuts will be considered at Thursday's meeting, they may not be the best way to boost declining prices.

“Anything that the group sees that will balance the market, we are committed to discuss it and hopefully go and do whatever necessary,” he said.

“But I wouldn't suggest to jump to cuts every time that we have an issue on trade tensions.”

While cuts could help prices, they could also mean producers lose further market share, analysts say.

“OPEC has traditionally resorted to production cuts in order to shore up the prices,” said M. R. Raghu, head of research at Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz).

“However, this has come at the cost of reduction in OPEC's global crude market share from a peak of 35% in 2012 to 30% as of July 2019”

The 24-nation OPEC+ group, dominated by the cartel's kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC production giant Russia, agreed to reduce output in December 2018.

That came as a faltering global economy and a boom in US shale oil threatened to create a global glut in supply.

Previous supply cuts have mostly succeeded in bolstering prices.

But this time, the market has continued to slide - even after OPEC+ agreed in June to extend by nine months an earlier deal slashing output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd).

The new factor is the trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies, whose tit-for-tat tariffs have created fears of a global recession that will undermine demand for oil.

Saudi economist Fadhl al-Bouenain said the oil market has become “highly sensitive to the US-China trade war”.

European benchmark Brent was selling at US$61.54 per barrel Friday, in contrast with more than US$75 this time last year but up from around US$50 at the end of December 2018.

The deliberations also coincide with stymied production from Iran and Venezuela and slower growth in US output, meaning that supplies are not excessively high.

“US shale output growth does not have the same momentum as in previous cycles, and OPEC production is at a 15-year low, having fallen by 2.7 million barrels per day over the past nine months,” Standard Chartered said in a commentary last month.