Global demand for crude is growing while non-OPEC countries are producing less of it, helping to bring the supply and demand for oil back into equilibrium by next year, OPEC's Secretary-General Abdalla Salem El-Badri and Kuwait's oil minister said.
"The current situation in the market is positive," El-Badri said Monday at a conference in Kuwait City. "I expect to see a balanced market in 2016, if the current situation persists." Demand for crude from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will increase this year and next, he said.
OPEC's commitment to keeping its output target at 30 million barrels a day is the "ideal solution" to re-balance the market and support prices, and the group has no plans to change the level before its next meeting in December, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Ali Al-Omair said at the conference. No members of the organization are currently calling for such a change, he said.
OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab producers, kept the group's official production target unchanged at its last meeting in June and has exceeded it for 16 consecutive months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, in an effort to maintain market share amid a worldwide supply glut. Officials from OPEC and non-member states plan to meet later this month in Vienna to discuss the market, El-Badri said.
Business on 10/13/2015