IEA says Russia cuts oil production by 58% of agreed volume in Mar

MOSCOW, Apr 13 (PRIME) -- Russia has cut its oil production by 174,000 barrels a day compared with October 2016 to 11.42 million barrels a day, cutting output by 58% of the amount agreed with OPEC and other non-OPEC oil producing states, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report on Thursday.

At a meeting on November 30, 2016, OPEC agreed to decrease daily output by 1.2 million barrels to 32.5 million barrels. On December 11, non-OPEC countries coordinated output reduction by 558,000 barrels, which includes Russia that agreed to cut production by 300,000 barrels. The agreement will be in force from January 2017 until the end of June with a possibility of prolongation.

IEA said that oil major Rosneft decreased daily output by 70,000 barrels in March compared with October 2016, which accounts for 40% of combined production slash in Russia, and Lukoil reduced the output by 14,000 barrels.

OPEC cut output by 365,000 barrels a day on the month to 31.68 million barrels a day in March. Compared with October 2016, production decreased 1.21 million barrels in March, which means that the organization has overshoot its production reduction liabilities under the deal by 4%, the IEA said.

Non-OPEC countries fulfilled their liabilities under the agreement by 64% in March when they cut their combined daily oil production by 359,000 barrels, up from 38% in February. Production of non-OPEC states decreased by 56,000 barrels on the month in March, with Mexico, Oman and Azerbaijan likely fulfilling their liabilities and Kazakhstan continuing to increase output, the agency said.

The IEA also decreased its forecast of combined world demand for oil in 2017 by 100,000 barrels a day to 97.9 million barrels. Growth of daily demand for oil will slow down from 1.6 million barrels in 2016 to 1.3 million barrels in 2017 due to weak development of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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