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Qatar's Ambassador to Russia believes that OPEC + deal will be extended

OPEC member-states and non-OPEC oil producing countries reached an agreement on reduction of oil production in late 2016

MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. Qatar's ambassador to Russia Fahad Bin Mohammed Al-Attiya believes that the OPEC + agreement on reducing oil production will be extended.

In an interview with TASS, the head of the Qatari diplomatic mission expressed confidence that the deal "has given good results."

"We see oil prices today standing at $70 per barrel. With the sluggish global growth - I don’t know where the oil prices are going to go - but we will see in the next meeting of OPEC, most likely, that they will extend it," he said. He noted that this he is voicing his personal opinion

"This is my own analysis, I don’t have the information per se, but so far the deal has been beneficial to all parties," the diplomat said.

"I cannot speak on behalf of the Oil Ministry, but I think that Qatar stands firm with different members of OPEC and Russia and we will agree on a good deal," the ambassador said, when asked if Doha will support the extension of the agreement.

OPEC member-states and non-OPEC oil producing countries reached an agreement on reduction of oil production (the OPEC+ agreement) in late 2016. The agreement obliges the parties to cut production by a total of 1.8 million barrels per day in comparison with the level of October 2016. Under the agreement, Saudi Arabia and Russia have the biggest cutbacks, which are 486,000 barrels per day and 300,000 barrels per day, respectively.

Qatar is OPEC’s member, it participates in the production cut agreement. The country’s obligation is to lower the production by 30,000 barrels a day against the October level. At that time Qatar produced 646,000 barrels.

The deal was initially valid in the first half of 2017 but since then it has been extended twice: first - until the end of March 2018, and later - until the end of 2018. The goal is to remove surplus world oil reserves from the market.