Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries are to maintain their market share and resist falling oil prices, say experts. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, convened on Nov. 27 in Vienna to devise a strategy against falling oil prices, and decided not to cut production for the first half of 2015. The global benchmark Brent crude oil price has decreased nearly 40 percent since June, and stabilized around the $70 per barrel mark this week, the lowest point in four years. Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries aim to maintain their market share, said David Koranyi, Director of Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative Center at Washington-based Atlantic Council and they are looking at Asia, Europe and the U.S., he added. Gulf countries have abundant financial reserves and essentially no debt to worry about. Thus they calculate that they can weather a sustained period of lower oil prices between two to four years, he added. Gulf countries signaled prior to the meeting that they will not make any production cuts, while Saudi Arabia lowered its official sale price to the U.S. to compete with the booming domestic oil production and maintain its market share there amid falling oil prices. Saudi Arabia could weather a period of low prices more comfortably than most other major oil producers, said Richard Mallinson, a geopolitical analyst at London-based energy market consultancy Energy Aspects. https://zamanalwsl.net/en/news/7821.html
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 22:12:02 +0000
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