LET’S STICK TOGETHER

dubai — Oil producers aim to agree a framework for long-term cooperation to ensure oil market balancing when Opec and non-Opec members meet in Vienna in December.

Stressing the need for oil producers to stick together for the good of the global economy as Iran faces renewed US sanctions, Opec secretary-general Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo said on Tuesday in Fujairah that an agreement between Opec and non-members that cut production and helped bring prices back up from lows of $30 a barrel in January 2016 was now “a permanent feature.”

“Our determination is to institutionalise this cooperation and to get the permanent framework hopefully by December,” Barkindo said at the energy forum in Fujairah.

At the upcoming meeting in Algeria on September 23, oil producers will discuss the best mechanism to ensure they reach 100 per cent compliance with crude supply targets, he said amid signs that Opec’s quest to balance oil markets is about to get murkier as Venezuela’s economic crisis and US sanctions of Iran — Opec’s third-biggest supplier — loom.

US sanctions on Iranian oil exports that will take effect on November 4 is expected to stoke

Our determination is to get the permanent framework hopefully by December

Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, Opec secretary-general

Collective increases in Opec output will need to balance Iranian and Venezuelan sensitivities Harry Tchilinguirian,

Strategist, BNP Paribas