World’s biggest oil producers meet to discuss possible freeze on production

[Lodestar]

Source: Guardian

Rare off-scheduled meeting between Opec and non-Opec suppliers will focus on what they can do to staunch the continued global surplus of crude oil.

The world’s biggest oil producers will huddle in Doha on Sunday in a rare off-scheduled meeting where discussion about what they can do to staunch the continued global surplus of crude oil that’s weighed on prices for nearly two years.

Hopes that members in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel and non-Opec oil suppliers, mostly notably Russia, may agree to freeze production pushed crude oil prices to their highest levels this year ahead of a meeting between the two groups.

“It’s quite significant because meetings like these, not one of the planned two annual meetings that Opec tends to have, is clearly showing the nervousness within Opec and showing … an increased level of awareness within Opec to do something with this surplus,” said Abhishek Deshpande, lead oil market analyst with Natixis.

It’s also important to note the role that non-Opec member Russia is playing during the confab, Deshpande said, without whom the meeting might not be occurring. Since Opec’s policy change in November 2014 from setting oil prices to letting prices float, it has been adamant that production cuts come from producers outside of the cartel.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/16/crude-oil-producers-opec-meeting-prices-production

[Equinox Moon]

1. Fantastic!

This will be good to follow.

[CarrieLynne]

2. arent they just trying to drive prices back up? More money in they pockets?

or am I confused? (again lol)

[GliderGuider]

4. Low oil prices are causing economic devastation in many parts of the world

As much as the middle-class people here on DU love to gloat about lower pump prices, bankruptcies and job losses due directly to low world oil prices are now visible now in the USA. The impact on the poorer exporting nations like Angola, Azerbaijan and Venezuela is deep and broad.

Here's an article from a year and a half ago about this very topic:

What countries lose when oil prices drop?

The drop is widening budget gaps in the Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain that rely heavily on oil to pay government services.

An IMF report last month said the hardest hit will include small oil exporters like Oman, which faces a budget gap of 1.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2016. Bahrain could see its budget deficit swell top 5.7 percent by next year, the IMF said.

Bigger producers are also at risk. Oil giant Saudi Arabia faces a budget shortfall of 1.3 percent of GDP in 2017 and currency controls that have led to shortages of many consumer goods, its first since crude exports dried up in 2009 following the global financial crisis.

With oil and gas production accounting for some 70 percent of Russia's government spending, Moscow also faces a big shortfall—after budgeting based on $100-a-barrel oil for 2015.

[cstanleytech]

9. Other side of the coin is though that eventually oil and coal will go away as a main energy sources

for the world as its used up and once the coal and the oil are gone any nation that is dependent on producing either of them is probably going to be SOL.

[GliderGuider]

12. A lot is going to happen to the world between now and then.

IMO making it through the next 2 decades as a functioning global civilization is going to be touch and go. FF depletion will play its part along the way, in both obvious and obscure ways.

[Bubzer]

13. Oh no! The handfull of businesses that made records profits for years might have to settle for less

Job losses within oil discovery and capture absolutely need to happen, and at a faster rate. With any luck, Bernie will be able to create his dislocated worker program for former oil workers when he's president.

Those countries that get some portion of their funding through oil need to shift to renewable sources for energy production.

I refuse to be sympathetic to workers who derive an existence from a product that is quite literally making the planet more and more hostile to life. Might as well say we need more war, cause workers depend on supporting more and more war for their livelihood.

[Ferd Berfel]

7. my first though too. Get your wallets ready

They used to have 'refinery break downs' to limit production and drive the price up. Now this.

Oh well. As long as we allow the vultures to operate with little or no oversight (rather than as a tightly regulated Utility) we will pay.

I think we probably need to pay more (like Europe) to get our minds right, and a least make a gesture towards saving the planet for the future generations. Too bad the extra money ends up going to the vultures rather than to US.

The days of non-electric SUV's are coming to an end. And that's a good thing

[cstanleytech]

10. Exactly what oversight are you expecting to happen by the US government over oil that other

nations own?

[Hoppy]

3. Their problem is that if prices go up, fracking resumes.

Then they are back to the original situation with too much oil. Either way, too much oil.

[cstanleytech]

11. I suspect when the dust settles we will probably find out that they actually bought alot of

the fracking companies and their contracts cheap after they drove them out of business using shell companies and private equity investment firms to do it.

[Lucky Luciano]

5. Iran confirmed they will not attend. SA said they will raise production if Iran does. Bearish. nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

6. How about keeping it intone ground because: Global Warming....

[GliderGuider]

8. That would require choosing the well-being of the future over well-being in the present.

People really hate doing that because: "Think of the children!"

[Dont call me Shirley]

16. iKR....

https://m.

[tk2kewl]

14. The "Free Market" at work

[meow2u3]

15. So the oil barons are seeking to manipulate oil prices?

I wonder if Putin is threatening their countries with nuclear war so he can profit off a big oil price hike.

[skepticscott]

17. Not too long ago, there was weeping and gnashing of teeth

over "peak oil". When was the last time you heard that phrase? Now there's such a glut of it that they're doing anything they can to keep it in the ground.

[brett_jv]

18. It's not that global production has risen so high, it's that demand has slowed down ...

The world is still only producing in the 80M/bpd range, a level it's been stuck at for over a decade ... thus it's still logical to assume we're at or near global historic peak capacity to produce petroleum. The 'cornucopians' twenty years ago speculated we'd be producing around 100M/bpd by 2016 ... hasn't happened. Admittedly however it's difficult to positively discern whether that's due to any 'supply side' constraints such as lack of oil, or the failure of demand to increase as expected over that time.

We're still in 'the bumpy plateau' phase, and most people who've followed peak oil theory closely will tell you that theory absolutely 'allows for' oil prices to rise and fall readily during the bumpy plateau.

True, many people were overly alarmist in saying that the plateau phase would be much shorter than it's been (going on 15 years now, who knows how long it lasts) and that the 'inexorable rise in price due to scarcity' would be beginning much sooner than it actually has ... but it doesn't make the theory 'wrong' altogether. Just as climate scientists disagree over how soon we'll see large sea level rises ... doesn't mean we say 'oh, those silly teeth-gnashers and their overblown global warming!' just because it doesn't start as soon as SOME alarmist-types calculate.

The alarmists also failed to calculate in 'fracking' in the Bakken and Eagle Ford because it wasn't happening that much yet UNTIL oil prices got high.

[skepticscott]

19. Sure, the general notion

that we will eventually not be able to draw as much oil from the ground as we are now is still valid. But the alarmism was not just over how soon the decline would come, but also about the apocalyptic consequences when it did. That kind of reckless doomsaying makes it much less likely that similar warnings in the future won't just be dismissed by most people as more of the same.

And climate scientists are quite right to be more alarmist, since we are already seeing detrimental effects from global warming (including sea level rise), and since beyond a certain point (which we may have already passed), the continuation of those trends will be beyond anything humans can do to halt or reverse it. No so with the decline of fossil fuels, as we are seeing.

[pampango]

20. Oil producing countries meeting in Doha failed to reach an agreement to freeze output.

Gas Prices to stay Low? Saudi-Iran Tensions Block Oil Output Freeze

OPEC and non-OPEC producers on Sunday failed to reach a deal to freeze oil output, three oil industry sources told Reuters.

Sources said OPEC producers had told non-OPEC members they needed first to reach a deal within OPEC, possibly at a June meeting. After that, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be able to invite other producers to join.

Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran join a global deal on freezing oil output, blocking an agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC producers that was supposed to help ease a glut and prop up the price of crude.

Some 18 OPEC and non-OPEC countries, including Russia, had been meant to meet on Sunday morning in the Qatari capital of Doha and rubber-stamp a deal —in the making since February — to freeze output at January levels until October 2016.

http://www.juancole.com/2016/04/gas-prices-to-stay-low-saudi-iran-tensions-block-oil-output-freeze.html

[forest444]

21. I'm sure the GOP is hoping they will (and using contacts to try to make it happen).

Worked against Jimmy Carter and, arguably, against Al Gore.