India asks producers for 'sensitivity' as oil price hovers near $90

livemint.com:

ABU DHABI : India, the world's third-biggest oil importer, on Tuesday urged producers to show "sensitivity" towards consuming countries, hit by prices largely trading above $90 a barrel since Saudi Arabia and Russia decided to extend voluntary cuts to year-end. "During pandemic, when crude oil prices crashed, the world came together to stabilize the prices to make it sustainable for the producers," Indian oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri, in Abu Dhabi to attend an industry conference, said after a meeting with OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais.

"Now, as the world is at cusp of economic recession and slowdown, oil producers need to show same sensitivity towards the consuming countries," Puri said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The U.S.

and Western allies have urged OPEC to raise output to secure lower energy costs and help the global economy. OPEC producers argue they are acting to maintain market stability and being preemptive.

Puri later told Reuters, in an interview on the sidelines of the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi, he had discussed oil prices with Ghais. "If the petroleum and natural gas minister of one of the largest consuming countries meets the OPEC secretary general, who has an inside track into the OPEC , surely we discussed prices," he said.

"So I'm very happy to admit to you that we did." Puri has long called for OPEC and its allies led by Russia, known as OPEC , to consider how their policies affect oil-consuming countries. "The opening position with any producing country - they will tell you, 'we don't deal with prices,' to which my response is that: if you deal with the amount of energy that you release - or stocks that you release - you may not want to, but you do affect