NEW DELHI: As pump prices at home go through the roof, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday accused OPEC of setting oil on fire by “backtracking” on its “commitments” made when crude had crashed and demand evaporated in the April-May period as Covid-19 brought the world to a halt.
“They had gone for some production cut. There was a huge slide in price. As a consumer we supported them at that time. On this point, for a longer period of a positive cycle you have to have balance and reasonable price. In that plan they assured something on which they have backtracked recently,” Pradhan told Bloomberg TV.
Pradhan has reason to feel he’s been left holding the baby. India and Saudi Arabia – representing the high table of consuming and producing countries – had come together to garner G-20 backing on April 10, 2020 for the deepest-ever production cut to rebalance an oil market ravaged by vanishing demand and crashing prices. The underlying theme was to work towards a “fair” market.
But OPEC lynchpin Saudi Arabia’s surprise offer to trim output by an additional million barrels a day, against an anticipated increase, has dashed such hope by pushing up oil prices.
