Transneft sees Russia cutting oil output from Mar under OPEC deal

MOSCOW, Dec 5 (PRIME) -- Russia will be able to start cutting its oil production under an agreement with OPEC from March 2017, Nikolai Tokarev, CEO of oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, told reporters on Monday.

On November 30, OPEC countries agreed to reduce their daily oil production by 1.2 million barrels to 32.5 million barrels from January 1, 2017 until the end of June. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia welcomed the agreement and is ready to cut its own oil output by 300,000 barrels gradually if OPEC daily oil production reaches 32.5 million barrels including Indonesia.

Russia has a surplus capacity of the main oil pipelines, and it’s maximum capacity is not going to change, “but taking into account the fact that the agreement is reached and it will come in force from March…We are likely to feel that,” he said.

“We are working on that, we are going to have a meeting of the board of directors in a few coming days and we will adjust our forecast for the 2017 budget policy. We will work out an option that takes the production decrease into account and how it will affect the company’s economics of operation.”

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