Notable investor and author Jim Rogers recently spoke with The Economic Times of India, one of the premier economic publication in India, and fielded some questions about the recent OPEC oil production cut agreement and his longer term view on oil markets.

Mr. Rogers expresses a skeptical view that OPEC will actually follow through on its plan to cut oil production in a meaningful way noting “The announcement does not take me by surprise. Let’s wait and see if they actually do it. We have had these announcements for 30 or 40 years and most of them have not panned out. It’s certainly making oil go up today and it will probably go up for a while.”

Despite his skeptical view of OPEC, Mr. Rogers emphasizes that oil market fundamentals are improving: “The real thing is that the fundamentals continue to improve for oil. As you know exploration has been cut back dramatically worldwide, expensive production has been cut back worldwide, fracking has been cut back. So the fundamentals continue to improve. OPEC may get away with it but it’s not (because of) OPEC but it’s (because of) the market.”

And there appears to be good reason for skepticism about OPEC. An article we recently posted in the ‘Top News Stories’ column (link here) shows that OPEC has actually been ramping up oil production. In fact, OPEC production is now at an all time high. Cutting production by 1.7 million barrels per day only returns OPEC production to near record levels seen earlier this year. In all likelihood, if OPEC does abide by its production ‘cut’ they will still end up pumping more oil in 2017 than they did in 2016. Not much of a ‘cut’ after all.

The Economic Times of India’s video player does not embed well so the interview can be found on their website here. Jim Rogers goes on to discuss more so enjoy the full interview.