Angola Unwilling To Compensate For Loose Compliance With OPEC+ Deal

Angola is not too keen to compensate for its loose compliance with the OPEC+ cuts by making deeper production cuts in Q3, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing sources in the industry and OPEC.

OPEC’s top producer and de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, has been trying for weeks to persuade the laggards in the OPEC+ deal – namely Iraq, Nigeria, Angola, and Kazakhstan – to cut production in July, August, and September more than they are supposed to, in order to compensate for their failure to fully comply with the agreement in May and June.  

OPEC+ agreed in June to extend the record production cuts of 9.7 million bpd by one month through the end of July, contingent on all countries in the pact complying 100 percent with their quotas and compensating for any lack of compliance by overachieving in the cuts in Q3.

At the video news conference following the OPEC+ meeting, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, emphatically said that “We have no room whatsoever for lack of conformity.” 

Still, Iraq, Nigeria, and Angola continued to pump above their targets in June as OPEC’s total production slumped to a three-decade low, thanks to the record production cuts and the extra efforts from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners to make further cuts last month.   

Iraq – which has been the least compliant member of the coalition – has promised to compensate for the loose compliance in May and June with deeper cuts in July and the following months. 

But Angola is not promising anything yet, according to Reuters’ sources. 

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“Angola is saying they would not compensate for its overproduction in July-September like the rest of the countries but would be able to compensate only in October-December,” an OPEC source told Reuters.

“We are still trying to convince them,” the source added.

Angola plans to deliver in August the full contractual volumes to customers in India and China, including MRPL, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), and Sinopec’s trading unit Unipec, a source with knowledge of Angola’s export plans told Reuters.

Just yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing delegates, that the Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, had threatened a new oil price war unless Angola and Nigeria toe the line.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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