Only Saudi Arabia most likely to cut oil output

The most likely outcome seems to be that Saudi Arabia will make some cuts in oil output, but most other countries will continue to increase output, Tom Pugh, the economist at British economic research and consulting company Capital Economics, told Trend Nov.2.

An exemption for Iraq would make it even more difficult for the other members of the group to cut output by enough to reach their target, he added.

Talking about the recent meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC countries in Vienna, Pugh said that it was always very unlikely that anything concrete would be announced before the official OPEC meeting in November.

Non-OPEC countries have always been clear that they will not sign up to anything unless OPEC has a clear agreement first, he said.

"I’d be very surprised if anyone except Saudi Arabia and maybe a couple of the other Gulf countries actually cut output. The other OPEC members are either already excluded, too small to matter or are in no financial position to offer any cuts,” said the economist.

Likewise, non-OPEC countries, such as Russia, will happily let OPEC cut whilst they freeze their output at record levels, or even continue increasing as they have done previously, according to Pugh.

Officials and experts from OPEC countries and non-OPEC nations including Azerbaijan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Oman and Russia met for consultations in Vienna on Oct.29 and only agreed to meet again in November before a scheduled regular OPEC meeting on Nov. 30.

OPEC and non-OPEC countries said in a joint statement that the meeting on Oct.29 was a "positive development" towards reaching a global output limiting deal on Nov. 30.

In September, OPEC producers agreed during the informal meeting in Algiers to cut down the oil output to 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from current production of 33.24 million bpd.

How much each country will produce is to be decided at the next formal meeting of OPEC in November.