• The Ministerial Monitoring Committee (MMC) has met in Kuwait to discuss compliance of the world’s top producers with the deal to remove 1.8 million barrels a day of oil supply, which was agreed in December. The committee, chaired by Kuwait, includes Russia, Oman, Algeria, and Venezuela.
• Algeria’s energy minister supports extending global oil production cuts to the end of the year as the strategy is succeeding in reducing global inventories. Russia is moving ahead with its own reductions to curb a global glut. “We are making progress in balancing the market,” Algeria’s Noureddine Boutarfa told reporters on March 25, as ministers met in Kuwait City to discuss compliance with the cuts. “Stocks in Europe and Asia are diminishing, we will see them diminishing in the US as well and that will reassure the market.” Iraq has made “good efforts” even if independent analysts disagree, he said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
• Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali Al-Luaibi said on Saturday the market is a decisive factor in deciding whether or not to extend into the second half of this year a global agreement on reducing oil output. “The market will decide. The market is a decisive factor,” Al-Luaibi told reporters in Kuwait, where a committee set up to monitor the production cuts convened on March 26. He said Iraq was in full compliance with the output-cut agreement.
• Saudi Arabia’s crude exports to the US in March will fall by around 300,000 barrels per day from February, in line with OPEC’s agreement to reduce supply, a Saudi energy ministry official said on March 23. “Exports may fluctuate week on week, but on average in March exports will be down,” the official said, responding to a Reuters request to comment on the EIA data. Saudi exports are then expected to remain around March’s level for the next few months, the official said. The official noted that export data showed higher Saudi oil exports in January and February, but these shipments were the result of cargo loaded in November and December.
OPEC news
OPEC news
