Gulf oil producers must continue to pull together | GulfNews.com

Gulf oil producers must continue to pull together | GulfNews.com:

"Rapidly evolving and influential developments in the global oil markets gave an aura of extreme importance to the annual energy conference organised by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research this week. Held in Abu Dhabi, it discussed an important issue related to the GCC oil in the world energy markets in terms of continuity and change.

Those are two quite expressive words — continuity and change. Since it is known that marketing GCC oil is facing stiff competition from more than one energy provider, especially in the current circumstances when the market is saturated and there is a surplus of 2.5 million barrels per day. This has prompted some producers, including Iran and Iraq, to offer steep discounts to increase their share of exports to the Asian market, which is the most important destination for marketing Gulf oil. Also, the increase in the US shale oil production constitutes another challenge for oil prices, which have lost more than 55 per cent of their value in less than one-and-a-half years.

In parallel, the global economic slowdown, even for some major oil consumers such as China, India and Brazil and the European Union countries, puts new further pressure on oil prices and leading to escalated competition and the offering of ever more discounts to get a higher proportion of orders from importing countries."



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