Salma El Wardany and Grant Smith, Bloomberg News
LONDON
EnergiesNet.com 04 01 2022
OPEC+ is considering whether to exclude oil production estimates provided by the International Energy Agency, a public snub that would follow months of more strident criticism from both sides.
Ministers will discuss the proposal on Thursday, delegates said, asking not to be named because the information is private. The move would change the composition of the “Secondary Sources” estimate of OPEC crude production that appears in the cartel’s monthly report and is used to gauge compliance with its output quotas.
It would also represent the culmination of months of sniping between the IEA, which represents the interests of major energy consumers, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. For several years, the two groups tried to work together more closely, but the severe energy crisis that’s gripped markets for the past six months and the growing push to curb carbon emissions has made cooperation more difficult.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has derided the IEA’s proposals for how the world could avoid damaging climate change as “La-La-Land.” When the long rally in oil prices began last year, OPEC+ ministers threw the blame back at the agency, claiming it had been discouraging investment in vital resources.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which leads OPEC+ along with Saudi Arabia, deepened the rift. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said he was disappointed in the lack of a response from OPEC+ to the crisis, which drove crude above $100 a barrel. As OPEC disregarded U.S. requests to pump more, the agency led the first coordinated release of oil from its members’ emergency stockpiles in over a decade in an attempt to push prices lower.
The IEA provides just one out of six sets of production estimates that comprise the “Secondary Sources” number. OPEC is considering replacing it with figures from Wood Mackenzie Ltd. and Rystad A/S, a delegate said.
The IEA’s press service wasn’t immediately able to comment.
(Updates with replacement data sources in sixth paragraph.)
Bloomberg.com 03 31 2022
