UPDATE2: Minister: Russia cuts oil output 300,000 bpd under OPEC+ deal

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MOSCOW, Apr 28 (PRIME) -- Russia has reduced oil output by 300,000 barrels per day under a production cut agreement with the OPEC and non-OPEC states fulfilling its obligations, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday.

“Yesterday (the oil output cut) amounted to around 298 (thousands of barrels per day),” he said.

Novak also said that an average reduction on April 1–Wednesday was 254,000 barrels per day, and the 300,000 goal will be achieved until Sunday.

The ministry will discuss a possibility of prolonging the output reduction agreement with heads of Russian oil companies and will form a position before the OPEC monitoring committee meets in Vienna on May 24, Novak said.

Novak said that he met with Venezuela's Oil Minister Nelson Martinez on Thursday to talk on cooperation issues and the output reduction agreement, without disclosing details of the discussion.

Novak said he is likely to meet with the Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Al-Falih at a forum in Beijing in May, but the date has not been scheduled yet.

OPEC states agreed to reduce their oil production by 1.2 million barrels daily to 32.5 million barrels in November 2016. Russia joined the agreement in December with a promise to cut output by 300,000 barrels daily compared with the level of October 2016. The agreement was concluded for January–June 2017 with potential prolongation.

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