VIENNA, March 15: The Opec oil cartel on Sunday froze its output at current levels and urged its 12-member nations to comply with last year’s deep cuts as a savage global downturn dents energy demand.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it would reconvene on May 28 for an extraordinary meeting to assess the market.

The move will allow time for the Group of 20 (G20) rich and emerging nations to respond to the global economic crisis at a London summit on April 2, it added.

“It’s a rollover until May,” Iraqi oil minister Hussein Al Shahristani said after the cartel’s crucial production meeting in Vienna.

Opec secretary-general Abdalla Salem El Badri told a new conference that pushing member states to adhere to previously agreed cuts “will reduce the overhang” of oil in the market.

Currently, there was an estimated 80 per cent of compliance, which was “a very good percentage,” Mr El Badri said.

But “if we have more compliance, we can reduce it further. We’ve called another meeting in May. If something happens between now and May, we’ll have to correct the market in May,” he said.

Opec has already slashed its output three times since September as crude prices slumped in the face of a worldwide economic slowdown.

“The conference was concerned to note that the world economy is in the midst of the worst global economic recession in decades,” Opec said in a closing statement.

Opec added that it observed with concern the deep impact of the economic downturn on world oil demand.—AFP
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