The Joint Ministerial Oversight Committee of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC oil-producing countries held a videoconference on the 4th.
In a speech, Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi Energy Minister who presided over the meeting, said that the mutant coronavirus is “worrisome and unpredictable” and that major oil-producing countries still need strict regulatory measures to maintain oil prices stable.
In his opening speech, Saudi Energy Minister Salman said that in the past year, OPEC member states and Russia and other non-OPEC oil producers have worked together to achieve the largest oil production reduction in history, and relevant collaborative mechanisms have pushed the global oil market to rebalance.
Especially in the past few months, the countries concerned have guaranteed maximum compliance with production reduction agreements and achieved compensation for the production reduction gap.
The emergence of a COVID-19 vaccine is very welcome, and vaccination is crucial to achieving economic recovery and continuously improving demand for crude oil.
However, there is still a high degree of uncertainty in the international energy market, global oil demand is still far below the level of early 2020, and the demand for transport fuel is particularly fragile.
The mutant coronavirus is even more worrying, so oil-producing countries should still take a proactive attitude to respond to developments and “do their best” to comply with the previous production reduction agreement.
Non-OPEC oil producers such as Russia have responded to unprecedented market shocks in the past year and continue to lead the industry on the road to recovery.
He said that the global economy is expected to grow by 4.4% in 2021, so OPEC expects crude oil demand to rebound to 95.9 million barrels a day this year.
