Venezuela hopes OPEC talks will retake 1 mln barrels of oil per day from market

ALGIERS, September 27. /TASS/. Venezuela hopes that after OPEC discussion of oil production freeze up to 1 mln barrels of oil per day may leave the market, Minister of Petroleum Eulogio Antonio Del Pino told reporters.

"We have huge amounts of inventories, we need to reduce that production we had in August. We are hoping to retake 1 mln barrels out of the market," he said.

The minister added that he expects the oil prices to fall in winter.

Earlier, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak told TASS that in 2016 the demand for oil on the global market will increase by 1.1-1.3 million barrels, but there is still a chance of the oil price decline in winter of 2016-2017.

In June, the Minister noted that the overproduction of oil in the world remains at a level of about 1.5 million barrels per day.

On September 28, at the International Energy Forum in Algeria, the countries-exporters of oil will hold an informal meeting.

Venezuela’s Minister of Petroleum Eulogio Antonio Del Pino said that Russia will not take part in the informal meeting.

In early September, on the margins of the G20 summit, Russia and Saudi Arabia, which control the production of more than 21% of world oil consumption, signed a joint declaration in order to stabilize the oil market.

As was reported earlier OPEC is considering four options of freezing crude production: at the level of January or August of 2016, as well as at the average level of the first or the second half of this year.

The previous meeting focused on crude production freeze took place in Qatar’s Doha on April 17. Representatives of 18 oil-producing countries (Iran refused to participate) failed to reach an agreement on oil production cap and after 12 hours of talks, said they needed more time for consideration. Iran refused to participate in the talks due to recently lifted international sanctions.