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OPEC under political pressure - minister

14 September 2016 08:40 (UTC +04:00)

Answering the question “Do you agree with the opinions that speculations on oil prices come from other side of the ocean?”, the minister said that it is difficult to say what the US aims.

“OPEC will hold next meeting in Aljazeera soon. Any decision to be made will be important. Despite an agreement on output freeze at the level of January had been reached at the previous meeting. You know there is a divergence between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The interesting point is that the players have increased the output since January. Now, I am thinking about several questions: What will we discuss in Aljazeera meeting? At what level will it be offered to freeze the output? It seems from the situation before the meeting and made statements that any consensus will be reached. However, interests of some countries may not coincide. For example, Iran wants to reach the output the level prior to sanctions. Iran intends to restore its position. Pay attention, even the interests inside OPEC don’t coincide”, Aliyev said.

Answering the question “do you agree with the view of “OPEC is dead”?”, the minister said: “No. I don’t understand what he means. May be he sounded this opinion because of OPEC cannot influence the prices. I personally think that OPEC is a powerful organization. May OPEC and its members are under political pressure. If OPEC wants, it may correlate the oil prices. However, they are given a sign before making decision. For instance, when the prices lowered, everyone was expecting OPEC will reduce the quota and influence the prices. But, OPEC increased the quota, while this will damage several members”.

Aliyev added that in spite of processes in the market, Azerbaijan has practically frozen the output since January.

Speaking about forecasts on oil price, the minister noted that the price will not go out of the corridor: “Several factors are important for defining of oil price. Firstly, the matter is about political factors. However, there are subfactors and we may speak about them for hours. To make a forecast on oil price is already insignificant. Fundamental and economic principles have been broken. What may happen in the future to cause the prices to go out of current corridor? I don’t see anything. It’s needed to see the reality”.