Following a shocking revelation by major oil producers to cut production last month, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC oil producers are planning to meet in Istanbul from October 8 to 13 for informal talks on how to execute the production deal.

According to Algerian Energy Minister, Noureddine Bouterfa, the Algiers deal to cut output would be effective for about a year.

Oil prices increased by about 7% last month, after OPEC revealed plans to cut production to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels per day in Algiers, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Bouterfa noted that OPEC could reduce output at its November meeting in Vienna by an additional one percent more than the amount agreed in Algiers last month, if producers see that it is needed.

“We will evaluate the market in Vienna by the end of November and if 700,000 barrels are not enough, we will go up. Now that OPEC is unified and speaks in one voice everything is much easier and if we need to cut by 1 percent, we will cut by 1 percent,” he added.

Brent crude futures were trading at $51.86 per barrel on Thursday, while WTI Crude increased 1.87 percent to US$49.60.

Goldman Sachs’s head of commodities research, Jeff Currie, has said crude prices are not likely to pass $55 in the near term.

He added that the recent recovery in prices will be restrained by players like Russia, together with an approaching increase in supply from large-scale projects commissioned in the past 5-10 years, as well as further supplies from Libya and Nigeria.

Anita Fatunji