“If they freeze production at January levels when you’re already over supplied by around a million barrels per day it just prolongs that situation of oversupply,” Energy Aspects’ analyst Dominic Haywood told Reuters.
Moreover, Iran, which is now free of western sanctions, will likely increase oil exports.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the freeze output was “ridiculous” since it puts “unrealistc demands” on Iran, reports Mark Shenk for Bloomberg.
“Zangaheh and Naimi have managed to deflate traders’ expectations that there would be an agreement to cut production anytime soon,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, told Bloomberg. “There’s a lot of hard bargaining and additional economic pain that’s going to have to occur before an agreement is reached.”
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Max Chen contributed to this article.