Saudi-Venezuela OPEC Split Plays Out Behind Closed Doors - Bloomberg

Saudi-Venezuela OPEC Split Plays Out Behind Closed Doors - Bloomberg:



"As Venezuelan Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez urged fellow OPEC members to cut oil production at one point during last week’s three-hour meeting in Vienna, the split in the group quickly became clear.



Eight countries -- including those from Angola and Nigeria, which are, like Venezuela, among the hardest hit by the five-month rout in crude prices -- embraced a reduction, according to five people briefed on the meeting. Absent from that list, though, was the most important man in the room, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, who led a group of four Persian Gulf nations in voicing dissent, the people said.



And with that, the push for a cut, which would require unanimous backing, was shot down, leaving OPEC’s daily output target at 30 million barrels and triggering a 10 percent collapse in prices by the next day. The disagreement cements the formation of two camps that had been brewing for weeks within OPEC: the financially strapped nations pleading for a cut to trim the supply glut and boost prices, and the fiscal powerhouses willing to withstand lower prices in a bid to get U.S. shale drillers to curb their expansion."



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