OPEC President Suhail al-Mazrouei defended the oil producer group against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent demands for higher oil output, saying OPEC does not shoulder the blame.
"OPEC alone cannot be blamed for all the problems that are happening in the oil industry, but at the same time we were responsive in terms of the measures we took in our latest meeting in June," Reuters cited al-Mazrouei as saying.
"I feel OPEC is doing its part," he stressed, adding that OPEC was willing to listen to major oil-producing countries, including the United States.
Mazrouei, who also serves as energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, said OPEC member crude producers had enough capacity to handle any unforeseen global supply disruptions. He said that OPEC is seeking a balance between supply and demand, not targeting a crude price.
According to him, the UAE alone has 400,000 to 600,000 barrels per day of additional capacity.
Mazrouei said he did not anticipate needing to call any extraordinary meeting of OPEC member countries before a scheduled meeting in December.
Trump has accused OPEC in recent weeks of driving gasoline prices higher and stepped up pressure on U.S. ally Saudi Arabia to raise supplies to compensate for lower exports from Iran. Washington has warned that it will impose sanctions on foreign companies that do business with Iran, in an effort to cut Iran’s exports of crude oil and condensates to zero from over 2 million barrels per day.
