OPEC will not cut oil output

(MENAFN) The UAE Oil Ministry said that OPEC will not cut its output to support the prices despite global oil prices continuing with their plunge and reaching a near six-year low, Gulf Daily News reported.

The Ministry also maintained its opinion that the increase in production, particularly the US shale oil drillers, is to blame for oversupplying the market, and its insistence that it should reduce its output so that the prices would begin improving again.

Despite the UAE, Saudi-backed strategy getting some backlashes, particularly from other OPEC members like Iran and Venezuela, the Ministry insisted that the organization had no intention of changing its decision, reached at a meeting in November, to keep its production steady.

"The strategy will not change. By not reducing output we are telling the market and other producers that they need to be rational and like OPEC, they need to look at growth in the international market for oil and need to cater that additional production to that growth," The UAE Oil Minister told reporters on the sidelines of an event.