OPEC+ grouping of oil exporting countries could tweak their existing deal on output cuts if there is a consensus among the member countries, Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Monday as specuations are rife on how the group will set its production quota for next year.

OPEC+, which groups OPEC members, Russia and other oil exporters, has been debating on whether to maintain the output cut of 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd) until 2021 instead of easing the curbs from next year.

“I would go and argue that could be a tweak beyond what the so-called analysts are talking about. We are keeping the flexibility in our hands,” he said during the ADIPEC oil and gas virtual conference.

According to S&P, the market appears to be largely expecting the OPEC+ countries which meets November 30-December 1, to extend its current 7.7 million barrel per day (b/d) in output cuts through at least the first few months of 2021, instead of tapering them to 5.8 million b/d as currently scheduled.

UAE energy minister Suhail al-Mazrouei also reiterated that the OPEC+ deal is flexible but that it requires unanimous agreement among its 22 members to be changed.

"We have the ability to tweak if we have to tweak, but we have to all be convinced that that tweak is required," he said.

The Saudi energy minister said that the group is working together to manage the market despite the new wave of COVID-19 outbreak in Europe and the return of Libyan oil to the global market.  “If it wasn’t for this capability and capacity within OPEC+, to be there physically present and with all the readiness to march and move, we could have had this situation prevailing today,” he noted.

(Writing by Anoop Menon; editing by Seban Scaria)

anoop.menon@refinitiv.com

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