Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Natig Aliyev doesn't believe that the oil producing countries will be able to reach any certain agreement on output freeze.
"I do not believe that countries will be able to reach any certain agreement. Saudi Arabia stated that freezing or reduction of production is not negotiable until Iran and other producers give their consent," the minister said in an interview with the Caspian Energy international journal.
The main reason for OPEC countries' choosing this stance was a certain market segment gained by each country, especially Saudi Arabia, and none of them wished to yield it to any extent, according to the minister.
"Therefore, considering the current global oil production rate, in reality, there are three countries which can still afford oil production increase. They are Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya,"Trend cited Natig Aliyev as saying.
Natig Aliyev pointed out that a new draft agreement strongly differed from the previous one and stated that countries are ready to freeze oil production at the January rate if all the OPEC countries accept it.
"It was written word for word that the decision about freezing will enter into force as long as all OPEC countries join this agreement. The matter involved Iran and Libya which did not attend this meeting," he said, adding that it has become clear that this clause would not work.
