OPEC NEWS

The OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (MMC) met on March 26 in Kuwait and decided to recommend an extension of the oil-output cuts deal to remove 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil supply, which was agreed on in late 2016. The committee was chaired by Kuwait and included Russia, Oman, Algeria, and Venezuela.
The MMC approved a report from the OPEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC), which monitors the production levels of the 11 OPEC members and the 11 non-OPEC countries participating in the supply-cut agreement. The report concluded that the 11 OPEC members implemented 106 percent of pledged cuts in February compared with 94 percent for January, Kuwait’s Oil Minister Issam Al-Marzooq said after the meeting. OPEC members and their non-OPEC allies had a combined compliance rate of 94 percent in February compared with 86 percent in January, he said.
Venezuela supports the extension of the cut deal, the country’s President Nicolas Maduro said on March 30. “There is already talk of extending the agreement that we consider necessary for market stability, a recovery in prices, and recovering investment,” Maduro said. After meeting Saudi Ambassador Jamal Ibrahim Nasef in Caracas, he said: “With Saudi Arabia we have a historic alliance for oil price stability in the energy world.” Maduro added: “We have developed, together with Saudi Arabia, a very intense working relationship for the historic agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC countries. It is an agreement that creates new paradigms in the world of oil and its derivatives.”
Kuwait and other countries support extending the OPEC cuts, the KUNA news service reported on March 30, citing Kuwait’s Oil Minister Issam Al-Marzooq. OPEC is working to reach consensus on the deal in the next meeting in May, he said.
Current talks about a possible extension lack sufficient information, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told state television Rossiya-24 on March 30. The key issue currently centers on compliance, he said.
In accordance with the agreement with OPEC, Russia oil output cuts reached 202,000 bpd in March, according to a statement from the Energy Ministry on March 31. Russian oil production averaged 11.046 million barrels a day in March, the ministry said. The Russian oil output cut is measured against October levels as stated in the agreement.
Libya’s crude production has dropped to about 500,000 bpd, the lowest since September, as exports from the nation’s second-largest terminal at Zawiya were disrupted. The OPEC nation’s output has fallen from about 700,000 barrels last week since production halted at Sharara in southwest Libya following the shutdown of the pipeline that links the field to Zawiya, according to a person familiar with the matter who is not authorized to speak to the media and asked not to be identified.

Source: Arab News