OPEC is likely to extend production cuts for another nine months, ministers and delegates have claimed.
It comes ahead of the oil producing cartel meeting this week to debate how to tackle a global glut of crude.
OPEC’s top producer, Saudi Arabia, favors extending the output curbs by nine months rather than the initially planned six months.
Saudi hopes to speed up market rebalancing and prevent oil prices from sliding back below $50 per barrel.
On Monday, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih won support from OPEC’s second-biggest and fastest-growing producer, Iraq.
Al-Falih said the Iraqis’ backed a nine-month extension and said he expected no objections from anyone else in the pact.
OPEC meets in Vienna on Thursday to consider whether to prolong the deal reached in December in which OPEC and 11 non-members, including Russia, agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day in the first half of 2017.
The decision pushed prices back above $50 per barrel, giving a fiscal boost to major oil producers.
But it also spurred growth in the U.S. shale industry, which is not participating in the output deal, thus slowing the market’s rebalancing.
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