“No, because the demand is growing now and the growth will continue in 2016. The oil production level is decreasing.”
However, the organization has no plans to decrease oil production within the organization, preserving the extraction on the level of 30 million barrels per day, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said Thursday.
“We arranged not to decrease production quotas on our last meeting in June. It is 30 million barrels per day and we will uphold this level,” El-Badri said at a press conference after the Russia-OPEC meeting, answering a question about the mutual understanding within OPEC about the issue of decreasing oil production quotas.
In November 2014, OPEC decided to maintain oil production levels, which resulted in a further decline in oil prices.
In 2015, Brent prices peaked at $69 per barrel in early May before decreasing to below $55 in July.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global oil prices are expected to fall further in 2016 in response to decreased demand.
OPEC Welcomes Rapid Lifting of Sanctions Against Iran
OPEC welcomes the future lifting of economic sanctions against Iran and hopes they will be fully lifted soon, Abdalla Salem El-Badri said during the press conference.
“First of all, we are very happy that sanctions against Iran will soon be lifted, this is a great breakthrough. Soon there will be no country within OPEC that has sanctions against it,” El-Badri said.
According to the National Iranian Oil company, the country's oil exports could be increased to up to 4 million barrels per day from their current 3-million-barrel level once the sanctions are eased.
