Saudi Arabia’s oil minister suggested Sunday that OPEC and non-OPEC producers including Russia should extend cooperation beyond the end of 2018, when their production-cutting deal is slated to expire, according to reports from Oman in Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.
Why it matters: The comments signal that while the deal that took effect in early 2017 has helped to bolster prices that collapsed in 2014 amid a global supply glut, OPEC’s dominant producer believes more collaboration is needed as the cartel and Russia grapple with surging U.S. output, which analysts see surpassing 10 million barrels per day this year.
