Qatari Energy Minister, Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada, said that both OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers would be meeting on April 17 in the Qatari capital. The minister, who is also the OPEC President, said that it is a follow-up to last month’s meeting held in Doha among the four nations of Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar where they proposed to freeze oil production at January levels. The four nations also wanted others to join them.

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Getting Wider Support

The Minister disclosed that about 15 countries from OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers were supporting the initiative. These nations represent 73% of global oil output capacity. Their stated objective is to stabilize oil production and remove the excess supply so that the producing countries can realize better prices and prevent the worldwide oil price from further decline.

The latest move comes on the heels of the Russian Energy Minister, Alexander Novak’s disclosure on Monday that an agreement could be signed next month after talking to Iran. He also said that there was also a possibility of excluding Iran since it has been under sanctions for years. The lifting of sanctions happened only in January. However, some countries like Kuwait want all big producers to be part of the freeze initiative.

Iran has been indicating that it would boost its oil production to pre-sanction levels and until then, it would not be a party to the oil production freeze move.

The April meeting will not only discuss the oil put freeze issue but will also finalize a deal. The interested parties indicated that they were not going to meet just for the sake of meeting. That is a clear indication that even if Iran is not ready to join, others will go ahead with the freeze output move.