The meeting in Doha on the freezing of oil production began with a 6-hour delay – RBC

Saudi oil Minister Ali al-Naimi (center) at the summit in Doha

Photo: AFP

In the Doha negotiations began between the two countries – oil producers to freeze production at the level of January 2016. According to media reports, the initial draft of the agreement made major changes

About the beginning of the meeting said the official Twitter Russian Ministry of Energy. Negotiations at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar, was to begin at 09:00 local time and will last two hours, but eventually started a six-hour delay.

The reason for the delay of the meeting, according to Reuters, steel demand in Saudi Arabia to revise the draft of the production freeze agreement. As a result, Reuters reported informed sources, the new version of the agreement suggests that to join it all OPEC countries. This means that an agreement actually start to work only if he will be joined Iran, which previously excluded freezing production levels.

The first version of the draft agreement, to which journalists could be found yesterday, 16 April, provided freezing production until October 1, at the level of January 2016. Parties to the negotiations planned a new meeting in Russia in October 2016. If an agreement on the freezing of oil is reached, to monitor its implementation can be created a special oversight committee, reported informed sources Reuters.

Since early April, the Saudi authorities in the person of Prince Mohammed bin Salman repeatedly pointed to the fact that Riyadh will freeze on the production level only if other major manufacturer, including Iran, to join this step. Iran, who returned this year on the world oil market after the lifting of international sanctions, does not intend to restrain the prey, until it reaches the level dosanktsionnogo (4 million barrels a day). According to March statistics OPEC, Iran’s daily production was 3.29 million barrels. On Sunday morning, Iranian Deputy Petroleum Minister, the managing director of National Iranian Oil Company, (NIOC) Rokneddin Javadi said that daily oil production in Iran reached 3.5 million barrels.

Analysts believe that, no matter how resulted in the Doha negotiations, the impact on the volume of supply, they will not have. This view is held, in particular, the majority of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg 40, the same view was expressed in the released April 14 IEA report on the prospects for the oil market. As explained analyst IEA Neil Atkinson told Reuters, the countries – participants of the Doha negotiations, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, it is simply not in a position to significantly increase oil production

However, the psychological effect on the success or failure of the Doha negotiations can seriously affect. on oil prices. In particular, analysts of Bank of America Merill Lynch and Saxo Bank believes that in the case of Brent crude oil quotations negotiation failures will fall from the current $ 43 per barrel to 30-35.