Published in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

"The OPEC meetings will result in nothing of substance," Omar Al-Ubaydli, program director for international and geopolitical studies at the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies, said in an email.

"Output freezes are of virtually no significance when those committing to them are producing at capacity or close to capacity, which is the case for many oil producers at the moment," he said. "Whenever the stakes are this high, expect a lot of rhetoric from oil producers and analysts as they jockey for position."

Published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

But Thursday, Reuters reported that a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC countries to discuss a production cap is unlikely because Iran has yet to say it will freeze output.

“Iran has already said that it won’t adhere to it, and I don’t expect Iraq to do so either as their budget is in a very bad state,” Omar Al-Ubaydli, program director for international and geopolitical studies at the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies, said in an email.

Iran has said it plans to begin exporting more oil as soon as financial sanctions are lifted this year with the goal of getting back to pre-sanction output levels. The country was once the second-largest producer in OPEC.

“It’s not realistic to expect Saudi Arabia and Iran to have severed diplomatic relations, yet still coordinate oil production freezes,” Al-Ubaydli said.

He added: “Iran’s role is to blatantly expose the instability of the proposed arrangement, in contrast to the Russians, who are likely to cheat covertly and deny it for as long as they can get away with it, before Putin then claims that he cannot control Russian oil companies because it is in the hands of private oil companies that answer to their shareholders.” Continue