Saudi energy minister urges oil producers to extend cooperation beyond 2018
Saudi Arabia's energy minister urged global oil producing nations on Sunday to extend their cooperation beyond 2018, but said this might mean a new form of deal rather than continuing the same supply cuts that have boosted prices in recent months.
It was the first time that Saudi Arabia had publicly raised the possibility of a new form of coordination among oil producers after 2018. Their agreement on supply cuts, originally launched last January, is due to expire in December this year, Reuters reports.
Khalid al-Falih, speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting later in the day of the joint ministerial committee which oversees implementation of the cuts, said extending cooperation would convince the world that coordination among producers was "here to stay".
"We shouldn't limit our efforts to 2018 - we need to be talking about a longer framework of cooperation," Falih said. "I am talking about extending the framework that we started, which is the declaration of cooperation, beyond 2018.
