MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/. Russia's decision to reduce oil production by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in March was voluntary, and there were no consultations with other countries, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

"This is a voluntary reduction, there were no consultations about it with anyone," he said.

A source in the industry told TASS that Russia made the decision to cut oil production in March on its own, there were no consultations with OPEC+.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters earlier that Russia plans to cut oil production voluntarily by 500,000 bpd in March. "Today, we are selling the entire volume of our oil output. But, as we have said before, we are not going to sell oil to those who directly or indirectly adhere to the ‘price cap’ principles," he said. "In this regard, Russia will voluntarily cut production by 500,000 barrels per day in March. This will help restore market relations," Novak added.

Novak's representative underlined that the production cut will only affect oil, excluding gas condensate.

According to the terms of the agreement, Russia's oil output was set at 10.478 mln bpd in November 2022. As Novak previously stated, Russia was producing roughly 9.8-9.9 mln bpd in January 2023.

When the previous OPEC+ agreement on reducing oil output by the alliance countries by 9.7 mln barrels per day entered into force during May-July 2020, and Russia and Saudi Arabia had to reduce oil production by equal shares - by 2.5 mln bpd from a baseline of 11 mln bpd - Russian companies cut production proportionally as part of the deal, Novak said at the time. According to the CDU TEK statistics, Russian oil and gas condensate production in 2020 fell by 8.6% year-on-year to 512.68 mln metric tons.