The latest chapter of the "what will OPEC do next" saga unfolded on Thursday as reports emerged that the cartel and the non-OPEC producers led by Russia may discuss a proposal to consider informal monitoring of crude oil exports, in addition to supervising compliance to production cuts.
The OPEC/non-OPEC joint panel on monitoring the cuts, which consists of OPEC's Kuwait, Venezuela, and Algeria, as well as non-OPEC Russia and Oman, is expected to discuss on Friday in Vienna a recommendation for monitoring exports, Bloomberg reports, citing two delegates who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Even if the producers agree to monitoring exports, results would be discussed internally, and OPEC's secondary sources will remain the only official measuring stick for compliance, the delegates told Bloomberg.
According to Russian media, Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said that the panel would discuss a monitoring procedure for oil exports at the meeting.
A technical committee met on Wednesday ahead of Friday's panel meeting and said that compliance for August was at 116 percent, three sources told Reuters.
The panel meeting will assess compliance, and could make recommendations for the official all-OPEC summit on November 30.
At last month's meeting, the committee said that the oil market was moving in the right direction towards rebalancing, but all options, including extending the cuts beyond March 2018, are left open.
Related: Can Oil Prices Hit $60 In 2018?
A month later, all options indeed are still open, and there has not been unanimous talk from OPEC-member oil ministers or Russia.
Earlier this week, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said that "some think that cuts should be extended beyond March, three or four months, or six months, or maybe till the end of 2018."
"Some, like Ecuador and other countries, even Iraq, think there should be another cut of 1 percent," al- Luaibi said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More