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No need to adjust 2019-2020 oil price due to Saudi Aramco situation — Russian top brass

Russia's economy minister characterized the impact of the Saudi Aramco incident on the domestic foreign exchange market as short-term

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Economic Development Ministry does not see any preconditions for the revision of macro forecasts on oil prices in 2019-2020 due to the recent drone attacks on Saudi Aramco oil facilities, Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin told reporters.

"No, we believe that this is an absolutely short-term event for the markets. Therefore, there are no expected qualitative changes in the forecast, especially for the next year. As for this year — it makes no sense to revise anything — we will look at the results at the end of the year," Oreshkin said.

He also noted that the impact of the Saudi Aramco incident on the domestic foreign exchange market will also be short-term. "We do not see any prerequisites for changing the forecast even at the end of this year, as well as for the next year," the minister stressed.

The facilities of the national oil company Saudi Aramco in the east of Saudi Arabia were attacked by ten drones in the small hours on September 14. Yemeni Houthi rebels from the Ansar Allah movement claimed responsibility for the incident. Particularly, the world’s biggest oil refinery near the city of Abqaiq and a refinery near Khurais, where Saudi’s second largest oil field is located, came under the attack. As a result of the attack, the kingdom reduced crude production by 5.7 mln barrels per day out of 9.8 mln barrels.

Saudi Arabia hopes to fully restore oil production volumes by October. At the same time, the kingdom plans to restore the full production capacity to 12 mln barrels per day by the end of November.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman announced that the country’s oil supplies had returned to their levels prior to the attack on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities.