OPEC members’ compliance with the agreement to
reduce output has improved in recent months, Iran’s oil minister said on
Monday, noting that unofficial talks were underway among the oil
producing countries to extend the cuts next year.
Under
the agreement OPEC is curbing its collective oil production by about
1.2 million bpd, while Russia and some other non-OPEC producers are
cutting a further 600,000 bpd until March 2018.
"I
think the oil market is balanced. OPEC members’ compliance with output
cuts has not fallen in the last six months; it has increased,” Bijan
Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the Iranian oil ministry’s news agency
SHANA.
The International Energy Agency said in
July that OPEC’s compliance with production cuts fell in June to its
lowest levels in six months as several members pumped much more oil than
allowed by their supply deal, thus delaying a market rebalancing in
supply and demand.
However, the IEA said in
August that world oil demand would grow more than expected this year,
helping to ease the glut in supply.
Zanganeh
said the OPEC agreement on output cuts would continue until the end of
the Iranian year in March 2018 and that "there are talks underway to
extend it but they are not official yet.”
However,
before a meeting in Tehran with Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy
Fernando Coelho Filho, Iran’s oil minister said, "it is improbable that
Brazil (a non-OPEC country) joins the output cut under current
conditions.”
He added that other non-OPEC members, especially Russia, have co-operated well with OPEC in cutting oil production.
