Oil supplies were sufficient and stockpiles were still rising despite massive output drops from Iran and Venezuela, said OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and key producer UAE on Sunday, as oil exporters met in Jeddah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Producer\n nations gathered to discuss how to stabilise a volatile oil market amid\n rising US-Iran tensions in the Gulf, which threaten to disrupt global \nsupply. But “we see that (oil) inventories are rising and supplies are \nplenty,” Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters at the \nstart the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“None of us wants to see the (oil) stocks \nswell again,” he added, with reference to a supply surplus that sent \nprices sharply lower in the second half of last year. \u201cWe have to be \ncautious,” Falih said. The UAE’s energy minister said there was no need \nto relax a deal by the OPEC+ group of oil exporting countries to cut \noutput by 1.2 million barrels per day to support prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have\n seen inventory building. I don’t think it makes sense” to alter the \nexisting deal, said Suheil al-Mazrouei. The meeting comes days after \nsabotage attacks against tankers in highly sensitive Gulf waters and the\n bombing of a Saudi pipeline, the latter claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni \nrebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Iran which did not send a representative to the \nmeeting was still expected to dominate the one-day meeting of the OPEC+ \ngroup of oil producing nations. The meeting is set to conclude by making\n recommendations for a key summit of oil producers in late June, to be \nattended by Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said it\n was “premature” to talk about extending the deal, according to a news \nagency.Massive drops in exports by Iran and Venezuela come alongside \noutput cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day implemented by the OPEC+ \ngroup since January. The International Energy Agency said earlier this \nmonth that global oil supply fell in April due to the effect of US \nsanctions on Iran and the OPEC+ production cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IEA said \nIranian crude production fell in April to 2.6 million bpd, down from \n3.9ay 2018 it would withdraw from the multilateral 2015 Iran nuclear \ndeal and re-impose sanctions. Iran’s output is already at its lowest \nlevel in over five years, but could tumble in May to levels not seen \nsince the devastating 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Energy \nintelligence firm Kpler sees Iranian exports plunging from 1.4 million \nbpd in April to around half a million bpd in May down from 2.5 million \nin normal circumstances. Venezuela’s output also subject to US export \nsanctions is also tumbling, down by over half since the third quarter of\n last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kpler data shows OPEC+ members have kept to agreed \nproduction cuts. But exporters fear a rush to raise production to plug \nthe gap left by Iranian exports could backfire, triggering a new supply \nglut.Sunday’s meeting comes amid soaring Gulf tensions after the \nmysterious sabotage of several tankers off the Emirati coast and drone \nattacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which shut a key Saudi crude \npipeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both attacks targeted routes built as alternatives to \nthe Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for almost all Gulf exports. Iran has \nrepeatedly threatened to close the Strait in case of war with the US, \nwhich said this month it was sending an aircraft carrier and strike \ngroup to the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saudi Arabia accused Iran which backs \nYemen’s Houthi rebels of ordering the pipeline attacks, targeting “the \nsecurity of oil supplies… and the global economy”. Saudi foreign \naffairs minister Adel al-Jubeir said Sunday his country does not want \nwar with Iran, but was ready to defend its interests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riyadh \n“does not want a war, is not looking for it and will do everything to \nprevent it”, he told journalists in Riyadh.Saudi Arabia called Saturday \nfor urgent meetings of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League \nto discuss escalating tensions, government news agency said. It also \nsaid Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had spoken with US Secretary of \nState Mike Pompeo about enhancing security in the region.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oil supplies were sufficient and stockpiles were still rising despite massive output drops from Iran and Venezuela, said OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and key producer UAE on Sunday, as oil exporters met in Jeddah. Producer nations gathered to discuss how to stabilise a volatile oil market amid rising US-Iran tensions in the Gulf, which threaten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61683,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61681\/revisions\/61683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}