‘Time Is Running Out for OPEC’: Oil Giants at a Crossroads After Doha Flop
SputnikNews.com
20.04.2016
The failure by oil-rich nations to agree to freeze production has weighed on crude prices, which remain volatile as chances for a deal look dim after Iran stayed away from the Doha summit and Saudi Arabia refused to follow through with the deal without Tehran’s participation.
The talks failed after Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates said they wouldn’t agree to a deal unless Iran joined in. Well ahead of the meeting Tehran said it would not freeze production until it reached its pre-sanctions quota of four million barrels per day.
In an interview with RT, financial consultant Patrick Young said that the time of cartel-like organizations like OPEC was running out as the rising volume of shale oil and gas production was making it hard for the traditional oil producers to keep the prices up.
The Middle East has turned into a battlefield between Saudi Arabia and its regional foe, Iran. Rejecting a more practical oil extraction roadmap, the Saudis refused to freeze their oil output in a clear challenge to other OPEC members, Young said.
“We expected a deal between the Saudis and Russia, but it looks like Riyadh is not ready to move forward as it remains at loggerheads with Tehran. Iran, for its part, wants to earn as much as it can from its oil export after the lifting of the international sanctions. Which means that in the next three or four months we are going to see the oil prices going up and down,” he added.
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