Oil Producers, Led by Saudi Arabia and OPEC, Extend Cuts<br />Despite rising prices, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and the cartel’s de facto leader, had insisted<br />that extending the cuts, which were set to expire at the end of March, was necessary to further reduce what Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi oil minister, said were still high stockpiles of oil.<br />An extension, he said, “should help put a floor under prices.”<br />Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil and OPEC’s de facto leader, wanted the meeting’s outcome to send a strong signal to the energy markets<br />that the cartel’s efforts to reduce supplies and push up prices would continue.<br />“In order to continue meeting our shared goals, a good deal more hard work and commitment is essential.”<br />Having been badly burned in recent years by low prices — they fell to around $30 a barrel in early 2016<br />— most of the group seems inclined to at least verbally commit to going along with Saudi wishes.<br />In the short term, his ambitions depend on robust oil prices,<br />and the Saudi oil minister, Khalid al-Falih, has spent the past year lobbying OPEC colleagues and other producers like Russia to agree to production cuts and stick to them.<br />VIENNA — OPEC and other major oil producers wrapped up a deal on Thursday to extend<br />output cuts through the end of 2018, part of efforts to bolster prices.<br />In a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, the Iraqi oil minister, Jabbar Ali Hussein al-Luiebi,<br />said his country, now OPEC’s second-largest producer, would continue to support the cuts.
