Oil Production freeze talks frozen

OPEC Secretariat

Some of the world’s biggest oil producers, including Nigeria, on Sunday failed to agree on the proposed production freeze for which they converged on Doha, the Qatari capital, in a bid to limit global supply and prop up prices.

The summit, which was attended by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, dragged on into the evening amid disagreements on the wording of the draft to freeze output at “an agreeable level.”

Qatar’s Oil Minister, Mohammed al-Sada, said the group “needs more time” to construct the outlines of a deal to freeze output, citing “improved fundamentals.”

Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, demanded that Iran join the global deal on freezing oil output, jeopardising the chances of an agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers that was supposed to prop up the price of crude.

Some 18 countries, including Russia, had been due to meet on Sunday morning in Doha to rubber-stamp a deal, in the making since February, to stabilise output at January levels until October 2016.

But the meeting was postponed after OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, told participants it wanted all OPEC members to take part in the freeze, Reuters quoted OPEC sources as saying.

Saudi Arabia had earlier insisted on excluding Iran from the talks because Tehran had refused to stabilise production, seeking to regain market share after the lifting of Western sanctions against it in January.

After the deal ran into trouble, oil ministers in Doha met with the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who was instrumental in promoting output stability in recent months.

Following that meeting, a new draft communique emerged containing none of the binding points of the previous outline, sources said.