MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/. Although world oil reserves are down, they have begun to grow and there is a surplus of oil on the market, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
"We (OPEC+ Monitoring Committee - TASS) also noted that the volumes of world oil reserves are quite low - minus 87 million barrels relative to the five-year average. However, we see that in recent months there has been an increase, and this means that we are currently observing a surplus of oil on the market," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel following the results of the OPEC+ Monitoring Committee.
On April 3, the OPEC+ Monitoring Committee confirmed its commitment to the agreements reached at a meeting in October 2022 in Vienna, at which time the countries agreed that from November 2022, they would cut oil output by 2 mln barrels per day from the August levels.
On April 2, a number of OPEC+ countries announced additional voluntary oil production cuts from May through the end of 2023. The total volume of these additional cuts, including Russia, will be 1.66 mln bpd.
From May until the end of 2023, Saudi Arabia will voluntarily reduce production by 500,000 bpd, Iraq - by 211,000 bpd, the UAE - by 144,000 bpd, Kuwait - by 128,000 bpd, Kazakhstan - by 78,000 bpd, Algeria - by 48,000 bpd, Oman - by 40,000 bpd, Gabon - by 8,000 bpd.
Russia will extend the decision to reduce production by 500,000 barrels per day from the February average until the end of the year. The current decision is valid until the end of June.