Abu Dhabi: Suhail Al Mazrouei, the Minister of Energy and Industry of the UAE and current Opec president, on Saturday said in a statement that the UAE is “determined to pursue” Saudi Arabia’s efforts to stabilise the oil markets.
“We are now set to initiate innovative efforts to deliver the future and build on the Declaration of Cooperation reached by Opec and non-member states last year to secure the sustainable development goals,” Al Mazrouei added.
“We will continue in Opec to closely watch the market in collaboration with our non-member partners and we will spare no effort to reach the state of market stability aspired by both producers and consumers.”
Opec, along with Russia, agreed to cut oil production by 1.8 million barrels per day in 2017, a move that was largely credited with reducing the global oil glut. That deal has been extended to 2018.
Al Mazrouei said possible efforts will be made to avoid the fluctuations and sharp plummet in global prices witnessed in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Prices this year crossed $70 (Dh257) a barrel for the first time since 2014. However, there has been growing concern that higher prices could results in another flood of American shale oil onto the markets. Prices for the Brent crude, the global benchmark, on Friday closed at $64.84.
The world economic growth has hit record highs unseen since the 2008 global crunch which means more demand is forecast over the coming years, Al Mazrouei said,
“Reducing spending by more than $1 trillion over the past years has resulted in massively scaling down production and exploration operations at a time Opec now forecasts demand to exceed supply over the long run by 15.8 million b/d, “ added the minister.
