VIENNA, December 4. /TASS/. The ministers of OPEC+ member states have decided to keep the current oil production plan which involves cutting production to 2 mln barrels per day since November, a source in one of the delegations told TASS.
"The plan is the same. No changes," the source said.
OPEC+ countries have decided to keep in place the agreed plan of oil production providing for daily production cuts of two million barrels a day, according to a communique posted on the OPEC website on Sunday.
"Participating Countries reiterated their readiness to meet at any time and take immediate additional measures to address market developments and support the balance of the oil market and its stability if necessary," the document reads.
Apart from that, they decided to hold the next meeting on June 4,2023.
A source close to the talks told TASS that the OPEC+ monitoring committee embracing eight out of 23 countries participating in the deal (Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Venezuela, and Kazakhstan) will meet on February 1.
A source in one of the delegations told TASS earlier that the OPEC+ nations have decided to keep to the current production plan. Apart from that, according to the source, a price cap on Russian oil to come in force from December 5 was not discussed at Sunday’s ministerial meeting.
At a meeting on October 5, participants in the alliance agreed to cut daily oil production by two million barrels starting from November. They also extended the deal till the end of 2023. Quotas under the OPEC+ deal as of August 2022 would serve as a basis for calculation of production cuts.
Earlier, OPEC+ joint ministerial monitoring committee began a meeting on its further oil production plan in a video conference format, a source close to the negotiation process told.
"They opened the meeting," the source said.
The ministers of OPEC+ member states began their videoconference, two sources in delegations told. "The ministerial meeting has begun," one of the sources said. Another source confirmed this information.
Initially both the session of the monitoring committee and a ministerial meeting were supposed to be held in a face-to-face format in Vienna, however, at the beginning of the week, the ministers decided to hold a videoconference.
As Bloomberg and Reuters reported, the OPEC+ countries are likely to decide to maintain the current plan for oil production, which was agreed at the last meeting in October. At that time, the alliance decided to cut production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November. Reuters quoted OPEC+ delegates as saying that at the upcoming meeting of the alliance countries would assess the impact of EU restrictive measures against Russian oil which come into effect on December 5 on the global market.
The monitoring committee includes 8 countries out of 23 OPEC+ participants, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Venezuela and Kazakhstan. Usually, on the eve of the OPEC+ ministerial meeting, the alliance's joint technical committee holds a meeting to assess oil market development scenarios. The report of the technical committee is the basis for the assessment of the situation at the meeting of the ministerial monitoring committee. This time, the meeting of the joint technical committee was scheduled for December 2, but, according to a source in one of the delegations, it was canceled. The source did not specify the reason for the cancellation.
If the OPEC+ monitoring committee reaches a consensus and provides a recommendation on production levels, the decision will be finalized at the ministerial meeting scheduled for 15:00 Moscow time.