Peskov: No date set for the OPEC+ monitoring committee meeting

MOSCOW, Apr 21 (PRIME) – There is yet no date for a meeting of the OPEC+ monitoring committee, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, a day after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suggested to Putin holding a meeting of the committee on May 10 to assess condition of the global market.

“We obviously took the suggestion into account, but no decisions have been made yet. It was only a suggestion made by mister Maduro,” Peskov told reporters.

Members of the OPEC+ agreement worked out mechanisms for synchronization of their positions, and the countries will contact each other if necessary, he said.

The mayhem with the May futures for the WTI oil blend is speculative, real prices did not fall as deeply, Peskov said.

On Monday, the prices for May futures for the WTI oil spiraled down into negative figures for the first time in history to minus U.S. $40.32 per barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“The May futures plummeted yesterday, and the price switched into the negative zone. Regarding that mayhem with the futures, it was purely a speculative moment, purely a trading event connected to the expiration date for trading in May futures…Obviously, no one should give any kind of an apocalyptic assessment to that,” Peskov said.

“We obviously pay close attention to the dynamics of oil prices,” he said, adding that they are also falling, but not as sharply as the futures contracts.

“Every specialist knows perfectly well that this is not a reason to give any seriously negative estimates to reality,” he said, adding that lower futures prices should not be linked to the current oil prices.

Russia has reserves to minimize the negative impact of low oil prices on the economy, Moscow will use them in case of necessity, he added.

On April 12, the OPEC+ countries agreed to reduce their oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day in May–June, by 7.7 million barrels per day in July–December, and by 5.8 million barrels per day from January 2021 through April 2022. Russia’s share in the reduction will amount to 2.5 million barrels per day in May–June. The agreement is valid until April 30, 2022, but the members will revise its prolongation in December 2021.

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