• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 1 hour GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 7 days If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 1 day How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 11 days Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

More Info

Premium Content

Iran: OPEC Considers Cutting Deeper As U.S. Shale Beats Forecasts

OPEC

Just a week has passed since an OPEC official last aired the possibility of deeper cuts, and comments on steeper reductions are resurfacing from the cartel, just a day after oil prices hit a new low this year and the lowest in at least seven months.

OPEC producers are holding discussions on potentially deepening the cuts, although some cartel members believe that the current deal needs more time to take effect on the oil market, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Wednesday, Platts reports, quoting Iranian state IRIB news agency.

The US oil production increase was unpredictable and this increase is more than what OPEC members had foreseen,” according to the Iranian minister, who went on to add:

“We are in consultation with OPEC members to prepare ourselves for a new decision. But making a decision in this organization is very difficult because any decision will mean an output cut by the members.”

The Iranian minister personally believes that OPEC needs to “wait a while and see how the market will form.”

Iran’s oil ministry’s news service Shana quoted Zanganeh as saying on Wednesday that the “unexpected rise in US crude oil output has been the reason behind falling oil prices in the market.”

While OPEC’s no.3 producer Iran is not cutting production under the deal, but rather keeping it at 3.8 million bpd, its regional rival Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader and biggest producer, is shouldering most of the cuts and compensating for rogue members, most notably OPEC’s no.2 Iraq.

In its latest Monthly Oil Market Report, OPEC said that “the rebalancing of the market is underway, but at a slower pace, given the changes in fundamentals since December, especially the shift in US supply from an expected contraction to positive growth.” Related: Have Natural Gas Prices Hit A Bottom?

Some analysts believe that OPEC needs to make deeper cuts, otherwise oil prices could slump further down to US$30 per barrel.

Earlier this month, Saudi Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih said that deeper cuts were not off the table, (nor on the table), and earlier this week he said that current expectations pointed to the market rebalancing in the Q4 2017 taking into account rising shale output.

ADVERTISEMENT

WTI was trading up a modest 0.23 percent on the news at $43.61, while Brent was trading up .04 percent at $46.04 at 9:17am EST.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Mark Taylor on June 21 2017 said:
    Message to OPEC: Now is the time to act. Don't wait any longer.
  • Let 'em rot on June 21 2017 said:
    Less money for dictatorships like Russia and Middle East countries is always a good thing.
  • Citizen Oil on June 22 2017 said:
    Shale oil companies are the algo's of the oil market. No regard for long term investment and growth. How can analysts claim these are well managed companies when they continue to cut off the branch they are standing on ? They just want in and out short term gains, possibly hoping to be bought out . It's shocking that anyone wants to finance these buffoons. Why grow at 10% a year when you'll contract by 50% when you kill the commodity price every 6 months ?
  • Oft on June 23 2017 said:
    F18' s are a set up
    Iraq will crack
    Ksa will attack
    USA will back Iraq
    Ksa will break it's back
    Arabia gets rid of Saud
    Wealth grip broken
    A great benefit to the world
    No more opec
    Open market, Cut deals with any country for oil.

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News