‘Opec is not the enemy of the US’

abu dhabi — Oil producer group Opec is not the enemy of the United States, Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei, UAE Minister of Energy and Industry, said on Saturday in Abu Dhabi.

“We are complementing each other, we are not enemies here,” Mazrouei told an industry conference in Abu Dhabi, addressing the relationship between the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the US, a major oil consuming country.

Opec and other leading global oil producers led by Russia agreed in December to cut their combined oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January to prevent a supply glut and boost sagging prices.

The decision came despite US President Donald Trump’s call for the oil exporters’ club to refrain from cutting production, saying it would trigger higher oil prices worldwide.

AL Mazrouei said the average oil price in 2018 was $70 a barrel. His Omani counterpart, Mohammed Al Rumhi, addressing the same event, said he expected a price of between $60 and $80 a barrel in 2019.

The 1.2 million bpd cut should be enough to balance the market, Al Mazrouei said, expecting the correction to start this month and to be achieved in the first half of the year.

“We are assuming no changes in the cut that we have,” he added. —