Five Latin American countries that met Friday in Quito called on their peers worldwide to work to stabilize crude prices, according to a joint communique released after the regional summit attended by representatives from Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and host country Ecuador.
They also recommended that oil producers in general "take production decisions based on public information from the global market" in light of "the need to balance crude output and demand to reach an equilibrium price," according to the communique, read by Ecuador's foreign minister, Guillaume Long.
The communique said that producers invited to an April 17 meeting in Doha, Qatar, should "take the necessary actions to stabilize the global oil market to improve prices, to the benefit of producer and consumer countries."
The communique made no mention of a proposal to freeze output at January 2016 levels that was floated earlier this year and is expected to be considered at the Doha meeting.
But ahead of the Friday summit, Venezuela's Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino and his Ecuadorian peer, Carlos Pareja, expressed support for the freeze as a possible agreement to be reached in Doha.
After the meeting, Del Pino also said Venezuela would be willing to give any agreed output freeze five months, before seeking an actual production cut to trigger a price recovery.
"The first step is to freeze, the second to reduce volumes," Del Pino said. Venezuela, he said, hopes the freeze will be enough to "achieve an equilibrium price."
Earlier Friday, Ecuador's Pareja said that while the April meeting would consider only a freeze, it was possible that the regular OPEC meeting in June could consider an output cut -- depending on the development of oil prices in international markets in the meantime.
At this time, Ecuador is not officially supporting an output cut. But President Rafael Correa has in the past called for producers to slash output by approximately 2%-5% in order to boost oil prices. Ecuador currently produces around 535,000 b/d.
The possibility of an output freeze has appeared weaker this month, however, after Saudi Arabia said a freeze could not go forward without Iran's participation. Iran, for its part, has said it plans to focus instead on recovering the market share it lost when international sanctions, now lifted, forced it to cut output.
Pareja said Friday that Iran was within its rights to increase output to levels seen before the sanctions, reiterating a position recently set out by Correa.
21 COUNTRIES MAY ATTEND MEETING: DEL PINO
Del Pino said that as many as 21 countries have confirmed that they will attend the summit of oil-producing countries, both OPEC and non-OPEC.
"Eighteen countries have confirmed firmly and two to three in verbal form," Del Pino said during the summit.
"We're going to have unprecedented interest" among OPEC and non-OPEC countries in the search for a "balanced price" for crude oil, Del Pino said.
He blamed the continued low levels of oil prices on market speculation. "As producers we can't permit market speculators ... to be those who set prices," Del Pino said. "It's our right to seek a fair price."
Pareja, speaking of the need to show diplomatic support for efforts to address low oil prices, said Friday that the "worst thing" would be if oil producers did nothing.
"To wait a year would be catastrophic," he said.
