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OPEC+ might discuss increasing oil output by more than 1 mln barrels per day — minister

On September 23, the 10th meeting of the ministerial committee will be held in Algiers

SOCHI, September 17. /TASS/. OPEC+ at the upcoming meeting in Algiers may discuss the possibility of increasing oil production by more than 1 mln barrels per day, Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak told reporters on Monday.

"I think that we have an opportunity to discuss any scenarios for the development of the situation, we need to look at the situation and the most expedient actions," Novak said.

According to the Minister, the deal is valid until the end of the year, the agreements are maintained. "In August, our performance was 108%. That is, we did not even fully restore production. We will discuss this situation and see what happens with the projected supply volumes in the Q4 and demand, taking into account the OPEC+ agreement, but also countries that are not part of the agreement," Novak said.

Sixteen countries have been invited to the meeting of the ministerial monitoring committee of OPEC +, which will be held in Algiers on September 23, a source in one of the delegations told TASS. The source added that the meeting may become the biggest in the number of participants in the history of the committee. "In total 16 countries have been invited, the meeting will be held in the format of mini OPEC. "Only Ecuador and Equatorial Guinea will not come to the meeting," he said.

It is not clear if Iran will take part in the meeting of the committee. The ministerial monitoring committee includes six countries - Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, Algeria and Oman.

The source also said that the meeting of experts of the technical committee, scheduled for September 11, which was to discuss the mechanism for distribution of quotas for the recovery of production, has been postponed to September 17.

On September 23, the 10th meeting of the ministerial committee will be held in Algiers.

The ministerial meetings of the committee are held every other month since the beginning of 2017, when the agreement on the reduction of oil production came into effect. The function of the committee is to recommend measures for joint regulation of the oil market to OPEC+ countries.

At the last meeting in Vienna in June, the committee recommended softening existing restrictions and raising production by 1 million barrels per day due to the decline in production in countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Mexico and Libya. The committee also sums up the current results of the deal. In July, the oil production cut agreement was fulfilled by 109% of the plan.

In June, the ministers agreed on the increase in production in general but did not agree on quotas of oil production recovery for specific countries recovery quotas, since not all the countries participating in the agreement have free capacities for production growth.