Saudi Arabia's new energy minister on Thursday reiterated calls for "cohesiveness" in OPEC ahead of a key meeting in Abu Dhabi.
"To achieve market stability, it's important we maintain a high degree of cohesiveness within OPEC and within also our partners in OPEC," said Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, speaking at a meeting of the organization's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Crude oil sold for over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 before bottoming out below $30 a barrel in January 2016. That fall largely came from a boom in U.S. shale oil and countries like Saudi Arabia keeping their production high to hold onto market share.
Hoping to boost prices, OPEC partnered with non-OPEC nations like Russia to lower their production beginning in 2017, the first such cut for the cartel in a decade. It reduced production by 1.2 million barrels per day, with 800,000 coming from OPEC and 400,000 coming from non-OPEC members.
That deal helped push prices back up, becoming what Prince Abdulaziz this week described as an arrangement "'til death do us part."
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