A production freeze agreed upon last week by key oil-producing nations is a “first step,” and crude heavyweights could “take other steps in the future,” said OPEC’s Abdalla Salem El-Badri on Monday, according to media reports. El-Badri, secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said at an energy conference in Houston that the freeze should be evaluated after three to four months to see if it succeeds, according to a CNBC report. He declined to elaborate on what he meant by next steps, a Financial Times report said. El-Badri noted that Iran and Iraq, whose agreement to the freeze is key to its happening, “will come back later” with their response to it.
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