It is time to name and shame those Opec countries lagging behind their pledges. Helpfully, the International Energy Agency today released its latest data on Opec members’ February output and their compliance with cuts the countries have pledged since September.
Those compliance percentages could also be used as a way to weigh the validity of any of the comments ministers will be making as they begin to arrive in Vienna today.
Interestingly, the most recent utterance comes from Shokri Ghanem, Libya’s jovial oil minister. He told Reuters: “Libya would entertain the idea of doing more than compliance…Compliance is a must — something else would be preferable.”
He added: “We are heading towards the second quarter and the second quarter seasonally is lower demand. There is still oversupply and there is a lot of stocks.”
Libya has complied with 56 per cent of its pledged cuts, ranking eighth out of Opec’s 11 active members. Angola, Opec’s president, Ecador, Opec’s smallest and newest member, and Iran, Opec’s most hawkish and second biggest member. More on the IEA report.
Video: Ed Crooks spoke to IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka earlier this week, and Tanaka forecast price rises which would encourage investment:
