"Many countries and suppliers are asking for more oil and are asking OPEC+ [the OPEC group and more producers that represent around 70 percent of world production] to increase oil production," said Diamantino Azevedo, in a statement cited by the agency Bloomberg Financial Information, rejecting, however, these requests.
"In my humble opinion, the current plan to increase production by 400,000 barrels a day is adequate and there is no need for us to change it," said the minister, backing public statements made in recent days by Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia.
In recent weeks, oil-consuming countries have been increasingly concerned about the rise in the price of oil, which has ranged from 50 dollars a barrel to more than 85 dollars today, with Russia's President admitting to 100 dollars a barrel it was not an unreasonable scenario.
With rising inflation pushing several central banks to raise interest rates, countries like the United States of America, India and Japan are putting intense diplomatic pressure on the cartel to approve a deal at Thursday's meeting. increase in production in the hope of containing or slowing the rise in prices.
According to energy sources contacted by Bloomberg, an eventual acceleration of the rise in oil production to above the current plan to increase 400,000 barrels per day, eventually agreed at Thursday's meeting, would not make electricity prices fall.
According to this view, OPEC+ is being used as a scapegoat for a crisis they did not create, because the problem is not oil, but rising natural gas and coal prices, which have inflated the cost of electricity for consumers.
