OPEC+ panel gets no Russian agreement for deeper oil cuts: sources

VIENNA -A panel of several ministers from OPEC, Russia and other producers failed on Wednesday to clinch an agreement about whether to make additional oil output cuts to prop up tumbling crude prices, an OPEC source said.

The source said Russia, which has been resisting additional cuts that are backed by Saudi Arabia and others, proposed keeping existing cuts by the group known as OPEC+ until the end of the second quarter, while some OPEC producers wanted extra cuts of 1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd).

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who had held talks with his Saudi counterpart earlier on Wednesday, left the meeting of the oil panel, known as the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, after more than three hours of talks.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Wednesday that the oil market was facing a surplus and needed to be balanced, SHANA, the news site of the Iranian oil ministry, reported.

“There is no doubt that there is an imbalance in the supply and demand of oil. Right now, the supply in the market is greater than demand,” Zanganeh said. “It’s necessary for OPEC and non-OPEC to make all their efforts to balance the market.”

“Based on the recommendation of the Joint Technical Committee and the secretariat, there must be a decrease of at least 500,000 barrels a day approximately in oil production,” Zanganeh said.

Iran’s crude oil exports were reduced by more than 80 percent after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a multilateral nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.

Iran is facing a coronavirus outbreak with 92 deaths and 2,922 infections.

“It has had no effect on the production of Iran’s oil and we are producing like before,” SHANA reported Zanganeh as saying.