Speaking at an event in Washington on Friday – staged by the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies – Al-Naimi said, “unfortunately, we tend to cheat.”

There's still more supply than demand (now). If (the OPEC countries) make a concentrated effort to reduce there will be a balance. But that remains to be seen.”

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Al-Naimi, who is touring on behalf of his new memoir, “Out of the Desert,” was replaced by Saudi Arabia in May after running the country’s oil ministry since 1995.

He has widely been credited with leading OPEC’s move not to cut crude production in November 2014, driving down global prices and putting pressure on U.S. shale producers.

But Friday Naimi threw some water on the idea that was OPEC’s grand plan. In his telling, countries like Algeria and Venezuela had wanted the cartel to reduce supply – but were not willing to do so themselves.

Nobody wants to take a cut except Saudi Arabia,†he said.