Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman scolded members of a key OPEC+ panel about cheating on oil production quotas, but did not name countries by name, according to reports.
“Using tactics to over-produce and hide non-compliance have been tried many times in the past, and always end in failure,” Prince Abdulaziz said at the opening session of the OPEC+ committee that monitors the output cuts. “They achieve nothing and bring harm to our reputation and credibility.”
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.
“Full compliance is not an act of charity. It is an integral part of our collective effort to maximize the interest and gains of every individual member of this group,” Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said.
The scolding of OPEC+ members had an added visual twist: sitting in silence next to Prince Abdulaziz while he spoke was his UAE counterpart, Suhail al Mazrouei, who in a rare development joined an OPEC+ teleconference on Thursday from Riyadh, rather than his home capital Abu Dhabi, Bloomberg reports.
In August, the UAE has made only 10% of its pledged production cuts, making the UAE one of the worst quota-breakers among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies.
The UAE pumped 3.11 million bpd in August, up by 240,000 bpd from July and 520,000 bpd above its ceiling of 2.59 million bpd as per the OPEC+ deal, according to oilprice.com.
“Attempts to outsmart the market will not succeed and are counterproductive when we have the eyes, and the technology, of the world upon us,” said Prince Abdulaziz.
Russia’s oil minister echoed the sentiments of Prince Abdulaziz.
“We see how difficult the recovery to the pre-crisis levels is, the outlooks for recovery of the global GDP and oil demand are being revised,” Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in his opening speech. “These are the trends we need to discuss today and take into account in our future actions.”
