OPEC Doesn’t Need to Raise Production, Ministers Say

(Bloomberg) — OPEC doesn’t need to increase oil production when it meets next week because supply is adequate, ministers from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq said.

“I don’t see the need for more,” Qatar’s Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, today after meeting with his U.A.E. counterpart Mohamed al-Hamli. “The market is well balanced.”


“We have to be cautious that demand usually drops in the second quarter and there are risks from a slowdown in the U.S. economy,” al-Attiyah said.

Al-Hamli also said the market is “well balanced.”

Ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Vienna on Feb. 1 to set production targets after a 12 percent tumble in prices since oil reached a record $100.09 a barrel on Jan. 3. Demand for OPEC’s oil typically declines in the second quarter, following the end of the peak winter heating season in the Northern Hemisphere.

Bloomberg