OPEC meetings to discuss clamp down on production start next week

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) officials are set to meet several times over the next six weeks in order to fine tune the details of their deal to cut down on oil production, according to Reuters.

The deal agreed in Algiers last week was that all member countries have to reduce output to a range of 32.50m barrels per day (bpd) to 33m bpd, which is its first output cut since the 2008 financial crisis.

The first meeting starts off in Istanbul next week, between OPEC energy ministers and Russian officials, on oil output in in the Turkish capital as the city hosts the World Energy Congress.

The series of meetings indicate that the cartel taking the global supply glut more seriously than it was in the first half of the year.

Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that Russia expected an output freeze deal to be reached before the OPEC meeting on 30 November 2016.

OPEC sources have said that no decisions are expected to be made in Istanbul but the meeting will give officials the chance to discuss the next step after the Algiers deal.

Exactly how much each of the 14 OPEC members should produce was however left out of discussions.

The matter has been handed to a high level committee, made up of OPEC governors and national representatives, who will work out these details by the meeting at the end of November.

A technical meeting of OPEC's national representatives will also be held in Vienna on 23 November 2016 to 24 November 2016. This will possibly be followed by a second meeting of the High Level Committee on 25 November 2016, which will then present its recommendations to the ministers when they meet on 30 November 2016.

"Steps are being taken to further develop a framework for high-level consultations between OPEC and non-OPEC oil-producing countries. We believe there is firm and common ground for continuous collaborative efforts among producers, both within and outside OPEC,” said OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo in a speech at the G-24 ministerial meeting in Washington.