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(Bloomberg) OPEC signaled no respite from the global oil glut that has driven prices to a six-year low.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will keep pumping about 31.5 million barrels a day, the group’s President Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said Friday after a meeting of ministers in Vienna. Members set aside their previous daily output target of 30 million barrels, a ceiling breached for 18 months. OPEC will wait until June to decide on a new limit, Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri said.
“Why should OPEC alone sacrifice its part in the market,” Iraq’s Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told reporters after the meeting. “Americans don’t have any ceiling, Russians don’t have any ceiling, why should OPEC have a ceiling?”
Guided by its biggest producer Saudi Arabia, OPEC has increased output in an oversupplied market in a bid to force higher-cost producers to scale back their operations. A proposal Thursday from Venezuela for a 5 percent cut in the group’s production went nowhere as Iran joined the ranks of members refusing to accept any curbs.
“The volume-maximizing strategy goes on for OPEC,” said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich. “It’s at least better to give up a useless ceiling. The burden to adjust supply remains on non-OPEC producers.”
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