UAE says Algiers oil talks aimed at consultation, not decision-making

An oil meeting next week in Algiers due to be attended by OPEC countries is aimed at holding consultations rather than making decisions, the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday.

“Wait until we meet next week,” Suhail bin Mohammed al-Mazroui told reporters. “Wait for us to discuss first before we jump to any conclusion.”

“We are not … targeting a decision, we are meeting for consultations,” he said, adding: ”We at the UAE are encouraged and we support the joint approach between Saudi Arabia and Russia.”

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum, which groups producers and consumers, from Sept. 26-28. Non-OPEC producer Russia is also attending the forum.

Saudi Arabia, the leading oil producer inside OPEC, and Russia, the biggest producer outside the group, agreed in early September to cooperate on global oil markets, saying they would not act immediately but could limit output in the future.

“We should not drive expectations in a certain direction prior to the meeting … We need to be cautious not to do something that is a quick solution,” Mazroui said.

Algerian Energy Minister Noureddine Bouterfa said on Tuesday that OPEC members could decide to hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss oil prices immediately after their gathering in Algiers.

OPEC and non-member producers including Russia are discussing a deal to stabilise the oil market by at least freezing output, although key details such as the timing and baseline for any deal have yet to emerge.

Several producers have called for an output freeze to rein in a supply glut that triggered a price collapse in the last two years, hitting their income. Previous talks on an output freeze collapsed in April.