Up to 12 oil producing countries from South America and Africa have been invited to join the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut deal, Venezuela's Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino said on the sidelines of an energy forum in Russia on Wednesday.
At the event, Del Pino stressed on the importance that more countries join the output cut pact, Venezuela's oil ministry said in a statement today. Currently, there are 24 countries in the deal, representing around 50 percent of the market; it would be a very positive message if we could include 12 more countries in the agreement, Del Pino said.
OPEC ministers and ministers from other oil producing nations will discuss this week the progress of the production cut deal and a mechanism to monitor crude oil exports, on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week between October 3 and 7, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday. More than half of OPEC ministers will be attending the event, which will be the venue of a lot of informal meetings ahead of OPEC's summit at end-November.
Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told Reuters at the event that there is "no objection" to the proposal for deeper cuts.
Meanwhile, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said at the forum that Russia was open to extend the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut deal, but again, he echoed other officials' comments that it's too early to decide now.
"Based on the realities in March 2018, we will make our decision, but I do not rule out that we may extend" Bloomberg quoted Putin as saying.
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"If we speak about a possible extension, then of course, it should be at least until the end of 2018," the Russian president added.
According to Putin, the countries will see how the global energy balance looks like in March next year, in order to decide whether to extend the production cuts or not.
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