Keeping close watch on oil markets after OPEC decision: Pradhan

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi-India is “watching” global oil markets after oil cartel OPEC decision to cut production for the first time since 2008 led to a surge in oil prices, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today. OPEC and non-OPEC countries have come together for what they call “rebalancing” of the market by reducing production so that the glut in the market eases, he said.

“As a consumer, we have to be watchful as things are emerging,” he told reporters on sidelines of the Petrotech conference here. He said countries that have agreed to cut output by 1.8 million barrels a day account for only 40 per cent of the world production and the remaining 60 per cent outside any quota limits.

“As a country which imports over 75 per cent of its oil needs, we have to be very watchful. We have to wait,” he said. Pradhan said he had raised with the visiting OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo that the grouping should keep in mind the interests of the consuming nations and not monopolise the market. “He stated that they will bear in mind the concerns but right now they are only rebalancing the market,” he said.