Oil producers reach consensus to extend oil output cuts

OPEC and other major oil exporters which are currently taking part in output reduction have reached consensus to extend the limits of cuts until the end of the year, according to the Iraqi and Algerian oil minsters.

"All members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries support an extension of the output cuts for a second six-month period," Iraq’s Oil Minister, Jabbar Al-Luaibi, and Algeria’s Energy Minister, Noureddine Boutarfa, said today in a joint news conference in Baghdad, confirming that non-OPEC members who joined last year’s accord to curtail a global oversupply of crude, will follow suit.

"The decision is to decrease output for six months," Boutarfa added in the news conference saying that Algeria and Iraq maintain a united stand for the next cuts.

According to a deal concluded in Vienna in December 2016, OPEC members are committed to cutting production by around 1.2 million b.p.d. while non-OPEC producers voluntarily decided to reduce output by 600,000 b.p.d., which took effect at the beginning of the year.

The Kuwaiti Minister of Oil, Electricity, and Water, Essam Al Marzouq, earlier this week referred to a "semi-consensus" on the extension of the production cut deal for a new six-month period during the coming OPEC and non-OPEC producers' meeting, to be held in Vienna on 25th May.