OPEC fails to agree crude output ceiling, to meet again in June

“One of the reasons that we did not really mention an amount is because we are looking to negotiate with non-OPEC more and see how we can reach a collective effort that all of us should contribute to the market”, he said. “Americans don’t have any ceiling, Russians don’t have any ceiling, why should OPEC have a ceiling?”

Iraqi oil minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said his country would further raise output next year after having steeply increased production in 2015.

According to Nigerian oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who is the Opec president, said “everything was on the table” during the seven-hour meeting. Ahead of Friday’s meeting, OPEC already was churning out well over than 31 million barrels a day and OPEC members are likely to continue producing more than their share as they push to compensate for low prices by increasing output.

“OPEC will wait until its next meeting in June to confirm its output target”, the group’s Secretary General, Abdalla El-Badri, said at the end of the meeting.

Brent crude for January delivery decreased $0.84 to close at $43 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi (C) speaks to journalists as he attend the OPEC meeting … The Saudis have repeatedly indicated a willingness to cooperate in balancing the oil market, but only if they see concessions from other major producers as well.

Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf have demanded cooperation from non-OPEC nations before agreeing to an output cut, but the new cap also acknowledged that the cartel isn’t in a position to dictate global prices.

“The heavy pressure on non-OPEC producers, especially US shale, is going to be kept up”, said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research at Standard Chartered.

A report in newsletter Energy Intelligence suggested this week the Saudis might be ready to fine-tune policies and could start pushing for a global deal to curb supply in order to avoid oil prices remaining low for longer. “The generally strong dollar trend [is] just one additional bearish item that the oil complex will need to contend with” this month, said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy-advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates.

Marathon Oil Corp, Hess Corp and Occidental Petroleum Corp each fell more than 2 percent.

“The pressure will build on Opec and oil prices”. The group accounts for about a third of world oil output and does not include Russian Federation or the USA, which rival Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producers.

The ministers agreed to readmit past member Indonesia, to expand their ranks to 13. In a statement, the group noted that it expects non-OPEC supply of oil to actually contract next year, even as demand rises.

It was widely expected that ministers would either re-confirm the existing official production ceiling of 30m barrels per day or add to it 800,000 bpd of production from Indonesia, a former member that has chose to re-join the organisation. “At this rate of overproduction we will run out of onshore storage in the first quarter”, said Gary Ross, a veteran Opec watcher and the founder of PIRA think-tank.