(Ecofin Agency) - There has been an increasing agreement amongst members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that a decision must be arrived at on ways to stop the global decline in the prices of crude oil price.

As a matter of fact, the prices of crude oil have dropped by over 70 % nearing $30 per barrel in the last 18 months as OPEC have refused to reduce production in spite of oversupply.

This decline has affected several countries that rely strongly on oil revenue, such as Nigeria and Venezuela. Even Saudi Arabia is reinforcing its resources so as to bear the revenue drop.

“There's increased conversation going on. I think when we met in December ... they (OPEC members) were hardly talking to one another. Everyone was protecting their own positional logic,” Emmanuel Kachiwku (photo), OPEC president said.

Affected oil producers have repeatedly called for an emergency OPEC meeting, but Kachikwu had said that the timing was not right. The group’s next meeting is in June this year.

“We haven't been sure that if we held those (emergency) meetings that we could actually walk away with some consensus. A lot of barrels are tumbling out of the market from non-OPEC members, so the Saudi philosophy is obviously working. But it's not influencing the price higher, which means that whether we like it or not some barrels are coming in from ... members and non-members to cover whatever is dropping out,” Kachikwu stated.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) had predicted an oversupply of 1.5 million bpd in H1 of 2016 and had said that prices could drop more as Iran's comeback from sanctions adds further crude to the market, Reuters reports.

Anita Fatunji