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OPEC says price cap on Russian oil still unclear

It is reported that the past period’s price drop adversely affected the inflow of investments to the oil sector, which significantly impacts global energy supplies

CAIRO, October 7. /TASS/. The limits outlining the much-talked-about price ceiling on Russian oil have not yet been defined clearly, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said on Friday on the air with the Al Arabiya TV Channel.

"The truth is, the shape of these proposed sanctions is not quite clear," Al Ghais said, adding that OPEC was not siding with anyone and is not a political organization.

Earlier, the EU introduced its eighth package of anti-Russian sanctions, which includes a legislative framework for setting a price ceiling for Russian oil, as well as restrictions on the sea transportation of oil and petroleum products to third countries.

"All the decisions of OPEC+ are aimed at maintaining a balance between demand and supply and not at setting a certain oil price," the OPEC Secretary General said. The latest OPEC+ decision "is highly flexible and enables coping with the expected economic uncertainty," he noted. This "is not a decision of one country against another one or of a group of countries against a single country; it was sophisticated and approved by 23 countries unanimously," Al Ghais added.

The past period’s price drop adversely affected the inflow of investments to the oil sector, which significantly impacts global energy supplies, the OPEC chief noted. The global oil sector currently needs about $12 trillion in investments, he added.

OPEC+ member-states agreed at their meeting in Vienna to cut oil production by two million barrels daily from November and renewed the deal until the end of 2023. Quotas within the OPEC+ agreement framework as of August 2022 will be taken as the benchmark to count oil production cuts.

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