Separate Deals for Certain OPEC States on Output Freeze Stall Talks – BP Russia

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that wish to be granted special conditions in the cartel’s agreement to cut oil production create additional challenges for OPEC to finally finalize the deal, BP Vice President for Russia Peter Charow told Sputnik on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Under the preliminary OPEC agreement that is expected to be finalized on November 30 in Vienna, Iran, Libya and Nigeria will receive concessions on oil output cuts. Special conditions for Iraq are also being considered since the country expressed unwillingness to reduce its oil production from 4.7 million barrels daily earlier this month.

"We’ve seen that this discussions have been going on for quite some time and it seems many countries will want to have a separate deal for themselves, many countries want to freeze production at very high levels so this creates some challenges for [OPEC] people to reach an agreement on what they are going to do and whether this will result in meaningful production cuts or not," Charow said on the sidelines of a Russia TALK Investment Forum in Moscow organized by the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce (RBCC).

On September 28, the OPEC member states reached an agreement on the sidelines of an international energy forum in Algeria to set a production ceiling of 32.5-33 million barrels per day. OPEC also decided to establish a technical committee to identify the production volume of individual member countries.

Other oil producing states that are not members of OPEC, namely Russia, are also expected to uphold the agreement, aimed at stabilizing the oil market.