Norway, one of the biggest oil producers not participating in Opec-led output cuts, said it’s quite happy with crude prices ahead of a crucial meeting for the group.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners are gathering in Vienna next week as the extended group’s heavyweights, Saudi Arabia and Russia, call for an increase in crude production. The meeting promises to be contentious, with some members, such as Iraq, publicly opposing the increases. However, Saudi Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih said they were “inevitable.”
Norway, which has cheered the production cuts from the sidelines since they were first agreed in 2016, views the current oil price level as “rather healthy,” Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Soviknes said in an interview in Oslo on Friday.
“The most important thing is to try to find a balance that ensures we neither get back to where we were with $100 plus, or get further big declines in the oil price,” he said. “Everything that can contribute to a stable development of oil prices and limit volatility is healthy both for the global economy and the oil and gas industry.”
Soviknes declined to provide a specific view of what oil-price level would begin to negatively affect demand, or to say what Opec and its allies should agree on to ensure market stability. Yet he hinted that production increases would be reasonable in order to make up for a drop in output in countries such as Venezuela and other factors limiting global supply.
“For those who have production that can be controlled to a certain extent, finding the balance would be good,” Soviknes said. “Opec and the other countries’ efforts are important.”
Norway, western Europe’s biggest oil producer, has been invited repeatedly to attend Opec’s meetings with non-members, but has declined. The minister was invited to Opec’s upcoming meeting, but neither he or any other government representative plans to attend, spokesman Peder Qvale said.
The Nordic country, which participated in international production cuts around the turn of the century, argues it’s no longer a large global-scale producer: domestic oil output fell by more than half between its 2000 peak and 2013.
Yet Norway’s oil output then rose three years in a row through 2016 and remained near a five-year high in 2017, making it one of the beneficiaries of the cuts. Norway produced 1.59mn barrels a day of oil last year, according to data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.



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