MOSCOW, February 1. /TASS/. The situation on the world oil market is now stable, balanced, and prices are reasonable, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
"The discussion (as part of the meeting of the OPEC + Ministerial Monitoring Committee - TASS) showed that everyone agrees that the situation is quite stable on the market. Prices are reasonable owing to supply and demand. Thanks to decisions that were made as part of OPEC+ on cutting production, today we see a balanced market and a fairly, let's say, stable current situation," Novak said.
He also noted that world oil reserves are now below the five-year average.
Meanwhile, the global oil market is still subject to a significant number of uncertainties, including those related to China’s lifting of COVID restrictions, Novak noted.
"The People’s Republic of China is coming out of COVID; we expect consumption growth. Beyond that, inflation expectations haven’t gone away and we are looking attentively at the actions of central banks of the leading global economies," he said.
"From now on, we will also look monthly at the level of implementation of the transaction and at how events will develop on the oil market," Novak noted.
At a meeting on February 1, the Ministerial Monitoring Committee of OPEC+ confirmed the agreements on oil production reached at a meeting in October, and did not make a recommendation to change the policy of the alliance. The next meeting of the monitoring committee will take place on April 3.
OPEC+ monitoring reviewed oil production data for November and December 2022. The meeting participants also reaffirmed their commitment to the OPEC+ agreement and the decisions made at the alliance's meeting in October. Then, OPEC + countries agreed to reduce production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November 2022. As the basis for calculating the reduction in oil production, they took quotas under the OPEC+ deal as of August 2022.