A meeting of OPEC producers and non-OPEC countries could take place on March 20 in Moscow, Iraqi Deputy Oil Minister Fayadh Nema said.
"The meeting in Moscow, expected to be held on March 20 between the largest oil producing countries inside and outside OPEC, will discuss a plan to freeze the production level," RIA Novosti cited him as saying.
Fayadh Nema noted that Baghdad is ready to cooperate to discuss a plan to freeze production levels with the most prominent oil producers in the world and to guarantee that Russia and Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producers and exporters, will sit at the negotiating table.
Earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that the meeting may take place in the period from March 20th to April 1st, but the exact date has not been determined.
Bloomberg reports Nigeria's Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, saying that the meeting of OPEC producers and non-OPEC countries will take place on March 20.
The Minister of Petroleum of Venezuela, Eulogio Del Pino, confirmed that the meeting will place, but did not name a date and venue.
A senior analyst of 'Uralsib Capital', Alexei Kokin, said in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that he is skeptical about the prospects of achieving a concrete plan to resolve the existing oil crisis by representatives of oil-producing countries in Moscow. "The meeting should be focused on the principal decision on the readiness of all participants to take on any commitments to curb the oil production – not only OPEC countries, but also such countries as Norway and Mexico. The next step involves the creation of a production monitoring and accounting system," he said.
According to him, at a meeting on March 20 the countries will need to agree on concrete quotas, because not everyone is ready to freeze oil production at the level of January 11. "Most countries agree to do it, but Iran is clearly against it and a number of countries would like to freeze production at another level. Then a transparent monitoring system will be needed," Kokin noted.
"There is such a system in Russia: the Russian Ministry of Energy collects production data from manufacturers every day. I think for Russia it would be enough to make it available for other countries. However, I think that the issue will be about the fact that all the participants have to share their data to exclude the possibility of manipulation, fraud and so on," the analysts expects.
Also, countries will have to agree on cooperation in the oil market. "It would be desirable to eliminate attempts at competition through price wars. Riyadh tried to provide discounts to some European customers to drive out Russian oil at the end of 2015. They could agree to avoid such things at least in this year," Alexei Kokin said.
The director of the Center for Studies of World Energy Markets at the RAS Institute of Energy Research, Vyacheslav Kulagin, in his turn, considers the possible significance of the meeting on March 20 in an optimistic way. "The meeting, of course, can be effective. The key question is Iran's position: whether it will agree to freeze its production level. However, we must understand that even if there will be a small growth in some producer countries, it is completely compensated for by the decrease in production, which we can see now in the US. Thus, we see the result of the reduction in production. This allows to adjust the market and reduce the oversupply, which we have observed over the last two years," the expert explained.
If these events will be overlapped by freezing of oil production in key exporting countries, it will speed up access to the supply and demand balance, so the prices will be more appropriate. "Oil prices have risen above $40 from $30, that is, about 25-30% from the level they were a few weeks ago. This is a signal of market participants that they still expect a moderate increase in prices," Kulagin said.
The director of the Center for Studies of World Energy Markets at the RAS Institute of Energy Research pointed out that in some sense the planned meeting is unique. "In recent years, precisely for the first time not only the OPEC countries, but also the key exporters will meet. That is, it is really quite a powerful signal to the market that the countries are ready to negotiate," he said.
"Of course, we must understand that the expected level of freezing is acceptable for the main players, in particular Russia and Saudi Arabia. But the question is whether it is necessary to maintain this level," the expert added.
