Ahead of their meeting Friday, there is recognition that the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be unable to nudge up prices, at least in the short term. Non-OPEC countries like Russia and the U.S. continue to challenge OPEC for customers. And within the cartel, Iran and Iraq want to start pumping more, even though regional rival Saudi Arabia appears unwilling to play along by reducing its own output. The Saudis and other OPEC states are looking to maintain their market share at a time when low prices are already cutting into their revenues. The upshot is the meeting will likely decide to maintain the official OPEC level of 30 million barrels a day, urge members to cut back on overproduction and hope for better times next year. That means oil could get even cheaper.
Iran's comeback is tied to the looming end of sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. Embargoes on Iranian oil are to be lifted over the next few months once a nuclear deal it signed with six world powers goes into force. Senior oil official Amir Hossein Zamaninia said last week Iran hopes to bring an extra 500,000 barrels on the market by early next year. He said he hopes the extra output will be accommodated within OPEC's formal ceiling of 30 million barrels a day. Arriving for the meeting Friday, Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Iran is ready to discuss a ceiling for its production — but only after his country makes a "full return to the market."
But Iran's hopes of a cutback from others for now are unlikely to be fulfilled. Ahead of Friday's meeting, OPEC already was churning out well over than 31 million barrels a day and OPEC members are likely to continue producing more than their share as they push to compensate for low prices by increasing output. Some of those extra barrels will likely come from Iraq. The world's fastest-growing source of crude this year, it was pumping more than 4 million barrels a day last month and was responsible for last month's biggest monthly rise in output among all OPEC countries.
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