OPEP+: manobras sombrias com participação do Brasil de Lula? - Anton Geraschenko

 Esta é a realidade do foro ao qual Lula acaba de associar o Brasil:

“ Judging by the statements of Saudi officials prior to Vladimir Putin's  visit to the Arabian Peninsula, Arab oil-producing countries are  dissatisfied and even annoyed with Russia's attitude as a member of the  OPEC+ alliance - the Moscow Times.

Preparing to meet the Russian  leader, the OPEC secretariat held a meeting on December 4 where  representatives of the Russian Ministry of Energy, employees of five  international organizations that analyze the state of the oil market, as  well as five agencies that monitor tanker traffic were present.

The  observers' main complaint was the lack of transparency of information  on the Russian side, especially regarding data on oil exports.

"We  wanted to convince our friends in Russia to share data on crude oil and  oil product exports," the Saudi minister told the attendees.

According  to Prince Abdulaziz, the Russian representatives agreed to provide  answers to many of the questions raised and to participate in other such  meetings regularly on the fifth of each month.

Oil and gas  analysts from the Persian Gulf are reportedly extremely mistrustful of  the promises of Russian officials, who have not previously been seen as  particularly keen on providing reliable information to their partners.  They recall in conversations that the Saudi minister has repeatedly  complained about the lack of data transparency from Russia.

Russia's  OPEC+ partners have no idea how much oil Russia actually produces, even  though manipulating the number of barrels is the cartel's main tool in  its efforts to stabilize the oil market. Instead, assurances are coming  from Moscow that for the sake of solidarity with its alliance partners,  Russia is indeed reducing.... not production, but exports.

In  1998, for example, Russia vowed to OPEC to cut its production by 7% but  left it at the same level. The following year, a new promise was made,  this time to cut by 100 thousand barrels per day, however, at the end of  the year the average daily production of Russian oil did not fall, but  increased from 6.17 to 6.18 million barrels. In early 2002, Moscow  announced that it was cutting production by 150 thousand barrels per day  under an agreement with OPEC - and by the third quarter, it had already  become clear that Russian oil producers were ahead of all their plans  to increase production.

In the fall of 2016, Russia, which by  that time had reached its peak production of 11.23 million barrels per  day, promised the cartel to cut this volume by 300 thousand barrels, but  there was no change in volumes in 2016 and 2017.

All the promises turned out to be just promises.

Russia  formally acts as the Saudis' main ally in OPEC+ and declares voluntary  measures to reduce oil supplies to the world market, but as Prince  Abdulaziz's remarks show, there is still a long way to go before a true  sincere, and honest partnership.

Putin's "Arabian tour" is meant  to show the world and the Russian population that somewhere on the globe  there are still countries that are willing to receive him as a guest  and not as a war criminal.

Mikhail Krutikhin, Russian economic analyst, and oil and gas market specialist, in the Moscow Times.”

From Anton Geraschenko