Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih has discussed with his Venezuelan and Kazakhs counterparts the option of extending the crude oil production cut deal beyond the March 31, 2018 deadline, the ministry said yesterday, as quoted by Reuters. The report comes after last weeks’ media quoted Russia’s Energy Minister, Alexander Novak, as saying the option for another extension was on the table. Novak added, however, that it is too early to talk about anything definitive. The initial OPEC-non-OPEC agreement pushed Brent prices up to almost US$57 a barrel and WTI to over US$54 a barrel in January this year, but since then, the benchmarks have been sliding down, with a few notable interruptions of the trend thanks to supply disruptions and the May decision to extend the cuts beyond the original deadline of June 30, 2017. A growing number of analysts, however, are of the opinion that OPEC is […]