Saudi says to cut oil output as producers discuss price

Soaudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter, said yesterday it will cut oil output from next month, as major producers held a key meeting to discuss shoring up sliding prices. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih announced the kingdom was cutting its supplies by 500,000 barrels per day from December. But Falih said ahead of the meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC key producers that there was not yet consensus on a broader output cut.

Oil prices have shed a fifth of their value in just one month after surging to a four-year high in early October, driven by a combination of factors centred on higher supply and fears of sluggish demand. The meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee in Abu Dhabi will not take decisions, ministers said, but will propose recommendations for a crucial ministerial meeting in Vienna early in December.

Among those attending were Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Oman’s Oil Minister Mohammed al-Rumhi and the energy minister of host UAE Suheil al-Mazroue. Falih told reporters ahead of the meeting that Saudi Arabia’s “crude exports for December will be 500,000 bpd lower than November”. The world’s top oil exporter has been pumping 10.7 million bpd since October, he said.

The Saudi minister acknowledged that so far there was no fresh agreement on reducing production among OPEC and non-OPEC producers, who struck a deal in late 2016 to cut output by 1.8 million bpd to remedy an oversupply crisis. “There is no consensus yet among oil producers about cutting production,” Falih said at the gathering. He insisted it was “premature to talk about a specific action”, when asked about the possibility of an output cut. “We have to study all the factors,” Falih said.