OPEC May Need to Extend Production Cuts to End of Next Year
- OPEC is sure to roll over cuts at May meeting: FGE’s Fesharaki
- Duration of production limits depends on oil inventories
Oil Slides as U.S. Drilling Rises
OPEC is certain to extend cuts in oil output when its ministers meet later in May and will need to keep limiting production until as late as the end of 2018, a veteran market analyst said.
The reaction of global crude inventories to the cuts will determine how long the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers stick with their policy of pumping less oil to counter a global glut, said Fereidun Fesharaki, the head of industry consultant FGE. Oil may drop to as low as $40 a barrel if U.S. stockpiles increase, he said Monday at the Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference in Dubai.
“The probability that OPEC will agree to extend its cuts is at 100 percent,” said Fesharaki, a former adviser in the late 1970’s to the Iranian Prime Minister. “And the cuts will have to be extended even beyond this year, to the middle or even to the end of next year.”