Key commentaries from Abdalla El-Badri

Organization of Oil Exporting Countries' (OPEC) general secretary, Abdallah Salem El-Badri tried to convince market participants around the world that OPEC is not a dead organization and the steps taken recently should be seen as beginning.

He tried to assert, regarding OPEC, "We are not dead. We are alive and alive and alive".

Recently, OPEC delegates, led by Venezuela, convinced OPEC's largest producer Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC largest Russia to freeze production at January levels. They also met with Iranian and Iraqi counterparts, but that yielded no tangible result. Qatar and Venezuela has also joined to freeze production.

According to Mr. Badri, "This is first step...let us see what we can achieve". He was speaking at a conference in Houston.

Regarding the next step he suggested to let production freeze to settle for at least three to four months and then decide what can be done next. However his commentaries suggest, that may not have much of a plan, "maybe if this is successful then we can take other steps in the future, I don't know".

Such an outlook of uncertain actions is very much in line with reality, since it is extremely hard to monitor, whether the countries are abiding by their production ceiling agreed. According to him, in next meeting in June, OPEC might asses the steps taken, their impacts and discuss over the steps needed next. However according to him, OPEC alone taking actions is not enough, cooperation required from non-OPEC producers too.

Today at the same conference Saudi Oil minister, Ali al-Naimi is scheduled to speak.

Brent is currently trading at $34.2/barrel, down -1.3% so far today.