MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Statements of many countries about the intention to release the coronavirus vaccine in 2020, lack of large-scale lockdown measures and business activity keeping have the positive effect for the oil market and a cause for optimism, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak says on Monday at the OPEC+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting.

"There is a range of factors making a positive input to the current situation. Firstly, continuously more countries start declaring the intention to release a vaccine against the new coronavirus infection by 2020 year-end," Novak says. The second Russian COVID-19 vaccine was registered on October 14, he added.

"We see lockdown measures introduced earlier at a large scale in many countries are softer by their nature, One of indicators is the global business activity index. It continued growing steadily in September and amounted to 52.3%," Novak noted.

OPEC+ member-states should continue honoring their commitments in full scope because the market is still unstable, the Minister said.