The news agency RNS reported that OPEC is expecting Egypt and Turkmenistan to join the oil output cut agreement, Khalid al-Falih, the OPEC President and Saudi Energy Minister, said at the press conference held in Vienna on 25 May.
”We were expecting Egypt and Turkmenistan to join our meeting today but due to their circumstances they could not do it. Nevertheless, they still express willingness to join the pact minimum as observers and maximum as participants as they made clear”, — he said.
Let us recall that on 23 May Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih held meetings with representatives of Norway, Egypt and Turkmenistan.The sides discussed the oil supply cut agreement and reached a preliminary agreement to extend the oil supply cut until late March 2018.
On 30 November 2016 the OPEC summit was held in Vienna where member countries reached an agreement to curb oil output by 1,2 million barrels per day — up to 32.5mb/d — and determined quotas for countries.
Later 11 independent producers, including Russia, joined the agreement.The participants agreed to curb production by 1.758 million barrels per day (bpd) against the October figure.The agreement is valid until 30 June.
On 25 May the OPEC summit and the meeting of OPEC members and independent oil producers were held in Vienna. The meeting participants extended the output curbs deal for nine months until 31 March 2018.