US State Department 'sceptical' of idea to freeze oil production

Baku. 24 February. REPORT.AZ/ US State Department Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein said that the United States doubts that freezing oil production would stabilize the current oil market situation, Report informs citing the Russian media.

"I am highly sceptical of this idea of the freeze. I think the Iranians today said that they would not go along with it, so I think that idea is gone away," Hochstein said Tuesday.
“I think that the oil market is going through a transformation, not only that we are in a down period of price, but we are in a transformative era where the swing producing capacity is now the actual market, price reactive, market driven,” Hochstein said Tuesday.

"I am willing to have a conversation with anyone, and have discussions with anyone. But at the end of the day, where we are in the oil markets and the oil and gas markets is that obviously we have seen an 80 percent reduction in price, we are volatile. But the market is the right place for decisions to be made and to react to price," Hochstein commented.

“Decisions are made by multiple companies, not by governments, not by cartels, not by single individual companies. That era I think is over for now,” Hochstein added.

Amos Hochstein also noted that the governments should not get involved in decisions on oil output or exports.

We have conversations with all our friends around the world, oil producing countries and oil consuming countries. But at the end of the day we do not believe that the government should interfere and decide artificially how much should be produced and how much should be exports," Hochstein stated Tuesday.

"The market is the right place for decisions to be made and to react to price," Hochstein added.