Oil in Global Economy Series: Kuwaiti oil minister sees no need to extend supply cut agreement

Kuwaiti oil minister Essam al-Marzouk said that OPEC and its non-OPEC partners may not need to extend that supply cut agreement beyond the current deadline of March 2018, which is aimed at reducing global oil supplies by 1.76 million barrels per day. However, he stressed that for such every country needs to comply with the quota. Mr. Marzouk leads the ministerial committee that monitors compliance with the deal. He added that the top priority for his committee and the cartel is to make sure that everyone is complying with the agreement.

While Mr. Marzouk said that OPEC compliance has hit 116 percent, data based on secondary sources suggest that the members remain marginally non-compliant with the agreement for the first 9 months of the year. International Energy Agency (IEA) in its report said that OPEC compliance at 87 percent for the first nine months of the year.

OPEC members and their non-OPEC agreement partners will meet in Vienna, Austria at the OPEC headquarter on November 30th to decide the future of the agreement.