UAE - Mubasher: The UAE has proposed to separate the matters of increasing oil production from the extension of OPEC+'s oil output agreement to progress a rise in oil output during August, according to the Emirates News Agency (WAM).
This announcement was made by the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure on Sunday.
In a statement, the Ministry referred that the UAE supports higher oil production from August without conditions, as the market needs this increase.
On Friday, OPEC+ voted to raise the oil output by around 2 million barrels per day (bpd) from August to December 2021 and to prolong remaining oil cuts to the end of 2022, instead of ending in April 2022, OPEC+ sources said, as cited by Reuters.
OPEC+ will resume talks on Monday after failing to reach a deal on oil output policy on Friday, 2 July, as the UAE has opposed some aspects of the pact.
The Ministry said that the UAE has backed a production rise in May, June, and July 2021, which has not been linked to any conditions.
"So it makes no sense to attach conditions to increase in August. We fully support an increase in August," the Ministry said.
However, the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) has insisted on coupling the increase with the agreement's extension, the Ministry added.
"The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) unfortunately only put one option forward, to increase production on the condition of an extension to the current agreement, which would prolong the UAE’s unfair reference production baseline until December 2022, from the existing agreement end date of April 2022," the UAE Ministry added.
The UAE Ministry of Energy has affirmed that the country is a committed member to OPEC and OPEC+ and has been a reliable partner in the current OPEC+ agreement, with 103% compliance in its two-year term.
The UAE has announced its willingness to extend the agreement further, if required, but requests a review of baseline production references to ensure that they are fair to all parties when an extension is agreed to.
"The UAE and its international partners have invested significantly in growing its production capacity and believes that, if/when the agreement is extended, the baseline reference figures should reflect its actual production capacity, rather than the outdated October 2018 production reference," the statement concluded.
