Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdallah Salem El-Badri, decided today to "freeze" oil production to meet the cumulative decline of oil prices.
EFE
Salem El-Badri and Venezuela supported the strategy, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia-the first three members of the OPEC recently reached agreement to freeze production at January 2016 levels if other countries seconded the measure.
Iran and Iraq have also been willing to embrace the strategy.
"This would be a first step," said Salem El-Badri during IHS CERAWeek international energy conference, held annually in Houston (United States).
According to the secretary general of the cartel, the strategy should be extended for three or four months, then evaluate its effect and implement new measures did not materialize.
"If this works, maybe in the future we can agree on new steps," said Salem El-Badri, who held various positions in Moammar Gadhafi's Libya between 1983 and 2006, including Minister of Petroleum and Energy.
The secretary general of the organization that controls 40% of world production was hopeful that an agreement between powers, the prices go up again in 2017, although he acknowledged that the situation is "worrying".
To that end, Salem El-Badri acknowledged that the cooperation of countries that are not part of OPEC and, in particular, the United States, is necessary.
"I do not know how we will live with the shale oil produced in the United States," confessed the Salem El-Badri.
The so-called shale oil, extracted with the technique of "fracking" need more than $ 60 per barrel to be profitable and the initial strategy of OPEC to increase production was move the market.
This strategy resulted in the gradual price decline in 2015 and early 2016 to $ 26 per barrel on 11 February, the lowest figure in 12 years.
Move beyond the oil shale market, this fall has had serious consequences for the economies of producing countries such as Venezuela and Iran.
In fact, last week Venezuela, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed in Doha freeze production to stabilize oil prices, suggesting a change in attitude of the Saudis, the main supporter of the previous strategy.
Salem El-Badri participated in the first day of the IHS CERAWeek, an international energy conference that opened today the president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto.
To executives and oilmen, Peña Nieto presented the energy reform as his greatest achievement as president and announced the advancement to April this year of free fuel imports.
This measure comes to prior authorization to companies other than Pemex to sell fuel to the public in 2018 in order to decree freedom of prices in a process of dismantling the state oil monopoly.
"This openness to imports from third is a strong action that will trigger a strong private investment and allow that there is intense competition in the fuel sector as prices for fully release in 2018," said the Mexican president.
IHS CERAWeek international conference will last until Friday, with the expected intervention Tuesday the Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al Nuaimi, and the participation of numerous business and political leaders.