OPEC has refused accreditation for Reuters, Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal for its meeting in Vienna, which is taking place this week.
“We believe that transparency and a free press serve readers, markets, and the public interest, and we object to this restriction on coverage,” Bloomberg quoted a Reuters spokesman as saying, adding that it had been given no explanation by OPEC for the decision to refuse it accreditation.
“We are once again very disappointed that OPEC is excluding journalists, including from Bloomberg News, from its seminar,” a spokesperson for Bloomberg said. “Market transparency is clearly in the public interest, and we continue to strongly advocate for OPEC to allow journalists from relevant global news outlets to attend its events.”
In the interest of fairness, there are plenty of media that have been accredited to cover the OPEC meeting, so “market transparency” will, in all likelihood, be upheld. However, the five publications denied access to the meeting have been some of the most vocal advocates for a transition to a net-zero economy, amplifying advocates of this transition and downplaying the realities of oil and gas demand.
This is not the first ban for three of the five media outlets. Back in 2023, OPEC refused to accredit journalists from Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal for a ministerial meeting of OPEC+. The Financial Times suggested at the time it was because those publications sought to break a story before meetings were fully concluded, which could affect oil prices and Saudi Arabia’s top oil man Abdulaziz bin Salman wanted to avoid such volatility as the kingdom tried to push prices higher.
Bloomberg, for its part, noted in its report on the accreditation refusal that bin Salman had criticized the five media outlets for their OPEC coverage in the past. Indeed, last year, bin Salman accused the media and oil analysts of “fiddling” with the oil market by speculating about OPEC+ meetings and the motivations behind their decisions.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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