The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will not change its fundamental policy of ensuring a well-supplied market at its upcoming ministerial meeting in Vienna, the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates(UAE) said on Monday.
The UAE Minister of Energy Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli, who will lead the UAE delegation to the OPEC ministerial meeting on Tuesday, made the statement in an interview with the official Emirates News Agency.
The upcoming meeting will discuss production targets and production levels of OPEC in the next few months, he said, adding that it is not possible to predict the outcome of the meeting.
"The determining factor behind any decision on production levels is whether or not the market is well supplied. Commercial crude oil stock levels of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries are within the five-year average level which indicates that the market is well-supplied," he said.
International oil prices are driven by factors like financial speculation, geopolitical concerns and adverse weather events as well as fundamental demand and supply, al-Hamli said.
"The recent decline in prices simply shows that the oil price had risen too high and too fast," he added.
"It is virtually impossible to predict oil prices because they are set by international oil markets with little or no influence from producing countries," said the UAE minister when asked about his expectation for the crude market by the end of the year.
Iran, the second largest oil producer in the OPEC, said last week that the OPEC should control the excess of oil supply to the market, which it thinks has affected the oil prices.
Source:Xinhua
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