Non-Gulf OPEC nations push for output cut as split deepens

The members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) seem increasingly split over whether the cartel should decide on a reduction of its levels of production at its next meeting.

While Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have in recent days indicated that they see no such need, countries from outside the Gulf region have grown more vocal in their calls for a reduction.

On Friday Libya’s OPEC governor, Samir Kamal, called for a reduction, and was joined in doing so by another African OPEC delegate, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Kamal refused to contemplate a reduction by Libya as its production was still far below the 1.5m barrels which it was at before the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

A member of the Iranian parliament’s Energy Committee, Masoud Mirkazemi, was even more adamant, with that country’s semiofficial Mehr news agency quoting him as having said that: “an emergency meeting of the OPEC has to be held so that these countries [that overproduce], particularly Saudi Arabia which is acting in full contrast with the interests of oil-producing countries, would cut their production.”