Well, as expected, despite the rapidly spreading panic rumors, the countries participating in the OPEC + agreement, as follows from the communiqué issued at the end of the next meeting, decided not to fuss in this situation and simply maintain the current parameters of the deal.
Moreover, as Russian “energy” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak stated, OPEC +, of course, emphasized its unconditional readiness to get together at any moment and make a decision in order to correct the situation on the market, if necessary.
But now this option is simply not needed.
The leading oil-producing countries have turned out to be quite ready for the development of current scenarios.
Including, on the one hand, the adoption by Western countries of the so-called.
price ceiling for Russian crude oil at $60 per barrel, and to the fact - as the same Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak confirmed once again - that Moscow will not export oil to countries that will set a price ceiling, we quote verbatim: “Neither at $60 per barrel, or at any other cost" (c).
And at the current moment in time, all the fuss that is happening around this ceiling is not a sufficient reason to change at least in one direction, at least in the other direction, the strategically verified and proven successful policy of OPEC + even in the current turbulence.
Actually, what was required to prove.
Everything is quite simple here: the decision on the "oil ceiling", and no matter what the level of the price indicated in it, is not only, to put it mildly, ill-conceived and non-market.
It also directly contradicts the vital interests not so much of the Russian Federation as of the OPEC+ alliance itself.
For it bears quite distinct features of the future "consumer cartel".
In contradiction to the existing “cartel of producers”, whose interests OPEC + is called upon to protect, as they say, purely in terms of its organizational functionality.
And OPEC+ is a completely viable organization, ready to defend its economic interests.
This is far from the EU of some kind.
Which, as rough practice shows, is prone to economic suicide, as they say, almost in real time.
OPEC+, after all, is for the most part the real East.
And the East lives long and has seen everything.
But in a passion for this kind of economic deviations, the same Arab sheikhs are somehow not just rather difficult to suspect - such suspicions would, frankly speaking, be extremely offensive for them, may Allah, the Merciful and Merciful, forgive us.
To strive for one's own destruction, laying down not only one's life, but also one's wallet in an epic battle for the notorious "Western values" (more precisely, for the material well-being of their possessed and increasingly politically transgender preachers), is, whatever one may say, a bit not theirs. jihad.
That is why the ministers of the OPEC+ countries at yesterday's meeting decided to keep the current plan for oil production (reduce by 2 million bpd) even against the backdrop of the approval of the EU and G7 countries of the price ceiling for Russian oil at $60 per barrel.
Here, we repeat, everything is simple: there are no fools, sorry.
Here, in fact, that's all.
Thus, unless some absolutely force majeure situations happen (and the price ceiling for Russian oil, we recall, is recognized as “an insufficient basis for this”), then the next meeting of the OPEC+ Ministerial Monitoring Committee will be held on February 1.
And the full-scale "ministerial" meeting of OPEC + is completely scheduled for June 4, 2023, far from the current pace of development of the situation.
Moreover, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak has even said that since the situation on the oil market has stabilized and even slightly improved over the past two months, additional OPEC+ meetings will most likely not be needed at all.
Well, if questions arise, they can always be resolved, so to speak, and in working order.
No problem.
What this means for world markets is quite clear: judging by the fact that now there is almost no free oil left on the global energy market, nothing, in general, is good.
And if Russia is nevertheless forced (and everything, frankly speaking, is heading towards this: the domestic authorities have already stated this more than once) to some reduction in production, then for itself this will be largely compensated, inevitably by this subsequent price increase. .
But for consumers, primarily for Europe, already living in conditions of severe energy shortage, this will be, to put it very mildly, a rather strong blow.
At least, as the same Alexander Novak states, the government is currently working out in detail the mechanism for introducing a legal ban on the use of a price ceiling for Russian oil, which the EU and G7 countries recently agreed on.
Well, this is so that our individual “effective market participants” do not try to get around this ban on a traditional crooked goat, we have had this happen before.
And some of our “Western partners” are partly counting on this.
Moreover, according to Novak, the Russian authorities are ready to go, among other things, to reduce production.
After, of course, European importers begin to apply this same price cap, which has been talked about so much and almost from every available iron lately.
However, overseas, there is no doubt, they will get out of this situation: they formed it for this.
Firstly, the Americans, unlike Europe, are doing very well with their own booty.
Secondly, the Americans are surprisingly flexible people who are well aware that, excuse me, this is not a business for sanctions, but sanctions for a business that is still more important for them.
In order not to go far, just a reminder of how it happens with Venezuela.
And with its sanctions oil.
And this is only one and even, believe me, far from the most striking example.
The Japanese are not going to leave the Russian Sakhalin fields anywhere either, just as they are not driven from there by sanctions and re-registration of projects: solidarity is, of course, an important matter.
But on the same rice with fish and the tourist attraction of the exotic civilization of the Land of the Rising Sun, with all the desire, you can stretch your legs, sorry, stretch.
So I'm sure they'll figure it out.
Well, with the coming loss of the economies of continental Europe, everyone is gradually coming to terms.
Even, sorry, we.
As far as we are concerned, everything will certainly not be easy here: the gradual loss of traditional European markets is rather painful for us, but by no means catastrophic.
And now it is already clear, it seems inevitable: the deindustrialization of the European subcontinent, unfortunately, is becoming a basic trend.
And this is no longer a threat, but a well-established economic fact.
But even this seems to be taken into account by OPEC +: both by us and by other main players.
And it is by no means accidental that the OPEC+ alliance recognizes the embargo and price ceiling decisions as insufficient grounds for revising the approved oil production parameters.
It’s just that they are now much more worried about slightly different uncertainties.
Namely, the high level of inflation and sovereign debt, as well as the tightening of monetary policy in a number of Western countries, which does not at all contribute to economic growth, and hence energy consumption.
As well as periodically recurring outbreaks of COVID-19 in China, which do not allow the locomotive of global economic growth to resolutely get out of the quarantine measures that are holding back its economy.
Well, the European economies are already slowly being erased from the list of priority areas: if people themselves choose such a suicidal, in fact, fate in the economy, then how can they be helped?
Yes, you probably shouldn't help them.
But that's another matter.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.