Crisis talks in Doha stretched late into the evening yet OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers failed to agree on a deal that would help raise up oil prices which have been crashing over the past year.
At the final press conference in the Qatari capital on Sunday evening, Qatar's energy and industry minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, said countries at the talks needed more time for consultations, before coming to any agreement. The next scheduled talks are in June.
The 18 countries that met in Doha, which included Russia and Saudi Arabia, represented nearly three quarters of the world’s oil output.
As of early Sunday, the signees were about to close the deal to cap production at January 2016 levels. At the last minute, Saudi Arabia demanded that its regional rival Iran also freeze its output. Iran, which didn’t even send a delegate to the meeting, refused to cut its production after suffering years of EU and US nuclear sanctions.
Commodities, Currencies Drop
Markets reacted immediately Monday to the failed agreement. Commodity currencies slumped while the safe-haven yen soared. The Canadian dollar and its Australian counterpart both dropped more than 1 percent lower to as low as C$1.2986 per U.S. dollar and $0.7594 respectively early on Monday. The loonie stood at C$1.2953, still down about 1 percent on the day, while the Aussie was down 0.7 percent at $0.7670.
The euro hit a low of 121.71 yen at one point, its lowest level since April 4, but was down 0.8 percent at 121.82 yen while the US dollar touched a low of 107.75 at one point, and was last down 0.8 percent at about 107.96 yen.
U.S. crude futures CLc1 were last down 4.8 percent, while Brent futures LCOc1 dropped about 4.4 percent.