Kuwait, Mexico spat over OPEC bid to pump less crude

Oil-producing countries including those of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia are trying to strike a global deal to pump less crude in a bid to limit a crash in prices that, while welcome for consumers, has been straining government budgets and pushed energy companies toward bankruptcy.

Late on Thursday OPEC and Russia reportedly had reached a tentative deal to cut production by 10 million barrels per day for two months

But by early Friday, Kuwait Oil Minister Khaled al-Fadhel suggested the deal was not yet done and accused Mexico of the disruption.

“At the meeting for the OPEC group that ended at 3 a.m., Mexico disrupted the agreement of all the countries to reduce the production of oil by 10 million barrels a day,” al-Fadhel wrote on Twitter, without elaborating.

There was no immediate response from Mexico, though its Energy Minister Rocío Nahle wrote around the same time on Twitter that Mexico proposed cutting its output by 100,000 barrels a day for the next two months.

Thursday's OPEC video conference was part of a series of talks on stabilizing the market, where oil prices have more than halved since the start of the year amid a pricing war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

The drop was intensified when the coronavirus pandemic caused a further plunge in the demand for oil as travel and business ground to a halt globally.