In a bid to stave off low crude prices, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may finalize a deal that will reduce oil output.
OPEC will reduce oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day to 32.5 million barrels per day to stop the crude glut that resulted to low prices in the last two years.
This, as Saudi Arabia agreed to the contentions of Middle East rival Iran to keep raising oil production level.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia Oil Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih met with the OPEC leaders in Vienna, Austria to finalize a deal that will cut out oil output.
With the new deal in sight, OPEC has reaffirmed its role as an oil “price fixer” – a development that will see the increase in oil prices in 2017.
In 2014, a pump-at-will policy had been introduced which inadvertently pushed oil prices down affecting the economies of oil-producing countries.
Saudi Arabia has accepted that Iran can raise output to about 3.9 million barrels a day. Non-OPEC countries were told to reduce output by 600,000 barrels a day.
It is not known how many barrels per day Saudi Arabia and Iraq will intend to reduce in their daily outputs.