Oil market intervention will speed balancing process, says Saudi energy minister

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said on Sunday that he believed the oil market would balance itself in 2017 even if producers did not intervene in it.

Any intervention will aim to expedite the balancing process, Falih told reporters at the headquarters of national oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Under a preliminary agreement reached in September in Algeria, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would reduce its production to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels per day, its first supply curb since 2008.

OPEC is now trying to finalise that agreement, and wants non-OPEC producers such as Russia to support the intervention by curbing their own output.

Falih said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia was sticking to its position on the Algiers agreement, that everyone should cooperate.