©Bloomberg

Saudi Arabia has set out its terms to join the first co-ordinated Opec production cut since the financial crisis. The only problem for an oversupplied oil market is few think it will be achieved.

As the world’s largest oil producers descend on Algeria this week for crunch talks on ending a two-year old supply glut, Opec’s biggest members remain far apart.

Several Opec delegates have sought to manage expectations saying the meeting would be informal and would only lay the groundwork for the next official Opec meeting in November, or perhaps a follow-up gathering next month.

With Brent crude, the international benchmark, dropping back towards $45 a barrel on Friday, almost $5 below its high of earlier this month, some in the industry see renewed downward pressure focusing the minds of Opec members.

The Saudi delegation is only seen playing ball if arch rival Iran agrees to cap its own output at 3.6m barrels a day — a level seen as anathema to Tehran as the country chases its goal of restoring production to the 4m b/d level it pumped before western sanctions were imposed five years ago.

Jan Stuart, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said that while he remains “sceptical” that a deal could be reached in Algiers this week he believes the risk was “no longer negligible”.

“As we see it, producers could at the very least announce next week in Algiers the specifics of the key proposal on the table, if they can agree to keep negotiations about the nuts and bolts of a deal alive.”

Market watchers also see signs that this week’s gathering in Algiers is about more than just jawboning the market higher after it threatened to drop back below $40 a barrel during the summer.

For one, Saudi Arabia and Iranian delegates sat down together last week to discuss the outline of a deal. Getting officials from two countries at loggerheads over Syria’s civil war and the conflict in Yemen together is no small feat, even as disagreements remain.

Saudi Arabia is also for the first time discussing not only a collective cut, also a specific range — between 700,000 and 1m b/d — that it believes producers need for a deal to have any credibility. While Opec sources say reaching a formal agreement may be a bridge too far this week, both Saudi Arabia and Iran’s stance is seen slowing softening.

“They are a lot more flexible, a lot more willing to talk,” says one Opec delegate from an African nation.

Using the average output level for July and August as a base and ensuring countries — bar Libya, Nigeria and Iran — each slice up to 4 per cent off their production is the preferred scenario for the kingdom, said one person familiar with Saudi policymaking.

In April Riyadh scuppered talks in Doha after Iran refused to attend. Tehran cited the impossibility of freezing its own production when sanctions had only been lifted three months earlier.

Since then Saudi Arabia’s production has accelerated to a record 10.6m b/d, while Russia, the largest exporter outside Opec, says its output has risen above 11m b/d. Iran’s output has also increased, with country officials pegging it near 3.8m b/d — not far shy of its target.

There is greater urgency than five months ago. The surge in Opec output has offset declines from elsewhere and contained prices. This has prompted all the major forecasting agencies to push back the timeline for when they expect supply and demand to come back into balance.

Another year of sub-$50 prices rippling through Opec members which can no longer finance state-spending predicated on the era of $100 crude has duly intensified pressure on budgets.

The path to any production deal likely entails Saudi Arabia finding a way to be more flexible over Iran’s output. Russia, which agreed to work with Riyadh to stabilise the market, has said it thinks Iran’s position is understandable after it saw its exports slump under sanctions.

But Opec members say they recognise the need to agree a deal among themselves before asking Russia and others outside the cartel to join. Still, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak will be in Algiers this week.

For Iran the sticking point seems to be the use of secondary estimates for calculating production — such as data from consultants and analysts that is reported to Opec — which they believe underestimates their output, according to two people familiar with Gulf Opec sources.

Opec’s last monthly report pegged Iran’s output at 3.6m b/d. Officials have recently suggested they believe it is closer to 3.8m b/d.

“Unless all the big producers are on board, there will be no agreement,” says an Opec delegate. “If there is no agreement on methodology there is no freeze, no cut, no anything.”

Any cut also cannot be so great that it risks pushing prices too high. The US shale industry that first pushed Opec to open the taps in November 2014 is waiting in the wings should prices recover beyond $60 a barrel.

Shale companies have cut costs to a level where they can survive and largely maintain output at $50 a barrel and it may not take prices climbing much higher to flip them out of their defensive posture.