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Russia 95% compliant with OPEC+ oil output deal in May - energy minister

Accordind to Alexander Novak, "Russia is fully committed to maintaining a balance on the oil market"
Energy Minister Alexander Novak Alexander Shcherbak/TASS
Energy Minister Alexander Novak
© Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. In May, Russia reached the 95% compliance with the deal led by the OPEC+ countries, which curbs oil production, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Saturday.

"In May, Russia reached the 95% level of oil production cuts," he noted. "Russia is fully committed to maintaining a balance on the oil market."

Earlier, Novak told reporters that Russia reduced oil production under the OPEC + agreement by 95.2% to its quota in April 2018, which is minus 300,000 barrels per day to the level of October 2016.

"The fluctuations in the production of liquid hydrocarbons in April were due to an increase in activities on PSA projects (production sharing agreements - TASS)," he said.

Thus, in April, Russia cut oil production by 285,600 barrels per day to the level of October 2016 (which was chosen as a benchmark level) when it was 11.247 mln barrels a day. (Novak specified the data for October earlier).

Russia committed to reduce oil production by 300,000 barrels a day, had been gradually heading towards this level since early 2017 and reached this level last May. Since than Russia consistently complied with the terms of the oil production cut deal. In certain months, Russia even managed to cut oil production above the required volume.

However, in March, Russia’s percentage of compliance with the OPEC+ deal was 93.4%. Then the failure to meet the quota was attributed to the increase in gas condensate production.