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OPEC Secretary General H.E Mohammad Barkindo
Coronavirus: OPEC Joint Technical Committee meet, deliberate production adjustment
T
he Joi nt Te ch n ic a l Committee, which consists of technical experts from some OPEC Member Countries and non-OPEC partners participating in Declaration of Cooperation, is currently meeting in Vienna, Austria at the time of filing this report. Their role is to review current market conditions and submit report(s) to the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), which will consider whether further voluntary adjustments in production are necessary.
adjustments. The death toll in China from the novel coronavirus outbreak has climbed to 491, while 24,324 confirmed cases have been reported so far and 65 people have died in the last 24 hours, according to the country’s National Health Commission (NHC). As Chinese cities are quarantined and factories are halted, refineries are curbing operations and shutting plants, while the nation’s top processor is seeking to re-sell millions of barrels of West African crude it no longer needs because of the squeeze to consumption.
In this case, the meeting has entered the third day as intense deliberation continues over the impact of coronavirus on the global oil market. The outcome of the discussions may determine whether the group convenes an emergency meeting to consider new production
China is the world’s biggest importer of crude oil but it is not yet clear what size of its demand has been affected but oil prices have hit their lowest level in 13 months due to weak global demand. Commending the Chinese resilience, the OPEC Secretary General H.E Mohammad
Barkindo said in a tweet “The proactive public health measures you [China] have undertaken; and the steady flow of data provided to the world at large is impressive and commendable.” In order to trim the over-supply in the market, OPEC and its non OPEC allies had earlier agreed in December to a production adjustment by an additional 500,000 barrels per day, starting January 2020. This decision which was reached before the outbreak of the dreaded virus would increase the present production adjustment to a total of 1.7million bpd, following the existing curb of 1.2 million bpd that had been decided in December 2018.
Majorwaves Energy Report FEBRUARY 2020, Vol 3 No 2 49
