Decisions made by oil producer group OPEC take a long-term view of the global markets and are aimed at providing price stability, Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said at the India Energy Week conference on Tuesday.
The comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly called on the producer group to increase oil production to help reduce prices.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, said earlier this month that it would stick to its policy of gradually raising oil output from April.
“We read the market. We analyze the supply, demand, away from political considerations, purely on technical, sound technical considerations, and we take the decisions that provide stability in the market,” Al Ghais said.
OPEC+ is keeping production cuts in place until the end of March due to global demand concerns and rising output outside the group.
“If you look at oil, also last year, oil was probably the least volatile commodity, and I think that’s greatly down to the decisions and the clarity that we take it (at) OPEC+. So this is our objective. This is what we will keep doing,” he said.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has maintained that elevated oil prices have helped Russia continue the war in Ukraine.
OPEC+ and Donald Trump clashed repeatedly during his first administration in 2016-2020 when the U.S. President demanded it raise production to compensate for the drop in Iranian supply that resulted from U.S. sanctions.
(Reporting by Nidhi Verma, Sethuraman N R; Writing by Florence Tan and Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Louise Heavens and Ros Russell)