OPEC Agrees to Cut Crude Production by 1.2 Million Barrels Per Day

On Wednesday, Trump had urged OPEC countries to keep oil production stable so that its prices remained low in the near future.

New Delhi: In a bid to boost global oil markets,Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members and 10 other oil producing nations agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day. Energy ministers reached the deal — which takes effect from January 1 but has already sent prices surging on oil markets — after two days of talks at OPEC headquarters in Vienna.

“We’ll cut 1.2 million bpd total,” Iraq’s Oil Minister Thamer Abbas al-Ghadhban told reporters after a meeting in Vienna. He said the amount — equivalent to just over one percent of global production — would comprise an 800,000 bpd reduction by the 14 members of OPEC and 400,000 by the 10 non-cartel partners, including Russia.

OPEC and its partners, which together account for around half of global output, agree that a glut in the market had led to oil prices falling by more than 30 per cent in two months.

The crucial meet came at a time when the global oil market is unstable in the aftermath of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the US government, thereby stifling Tehran`s crude supplies. Crude rates skyrocketed to a four-year high of USD 86 per barrel in October. But since then, the price spiralled down to about USD 60 per barrel.

On Wednesday, Trump had urged OPEC countries to keep oil production stable so that its prices remained low in the near future. “Hopefully OPEC will be keeping oil flows as is, not restricted. The World does not want to see, or need, higher oil prices!”, the US President had tweeted.

The OPEC is a grouping of 15 oil-producing nations and comprises Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Congo, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Qatar. They account for more than half of the world’s oil output.