Sources: Russia ready to keep output under OPEC+ deal

MOSCOW, Nov 17 (PRIME) -- Russian oil companies agree to maintain the current production quotas and not to raise the output in January–March 2021 under the OPEC+ deal that supposes weakening of restrictions by almost 2 million barrels a day starting from January 1, 2021, sources in the industry told PRIME late on Monday.

A source said that companies are ready to consider prolongation of the current quotas instead of an increase of output as “everyone understands the difficulty of the situation”.

A source familiar with the position of Russia prepared for a meeting of the OPEC+ technical committee said that the baseline is that Moscow was ready to support prolongation of the current quotas, but did not rule out considering other options.

Bloomberg reported earlier quoting participants of the technical committee’s meeting that the experts recommended that the OPEC+ joint ministerial monitoring committee that is to meet on Tuesday consider either keeping the current conditions for January–March or for January–June 2021.

The OPEC+ countries agreed to reduce their oil output by a significant 9.7 million barrels per day in May to fight the consequences of the global coronavirus crisis, with Russia’s share of 2.5 million barrels per day. Later, the cut was prolonged at 9.7 million barrels per day for July, and narrowed to 7.7 million barrels per day for August–December, and then to 5.8 million barrels per day until May 2022.

The agreement is valid until April 30, 2022, but the members will revise its extension in December 2021.

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