The OPEC+ group is unlikely to make any material changes next week to the plans to ease the production cuts over the next three months, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday.
OPEC+, which decided on April 1 to gradually return over 1 million barrels per day (bpd) on the market between May and July, has the next meetings of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) and the ministers scheduled for April 28.
“We have a meeting planned at the end of April to review the market situation once again. We made our plans a month ago, so if nothing out of the ordinary happens in the meantime, next week’s meeting will confirm those plans or tweak them,” Novak said.
In early April, OPEC+ decided to gradually increase collective oil production by 350,000 bpd in each of May and June and by more than 400,000 bpd in July. Additionally, Saudi Arabia will also gradually ease its extra unilateral cut of 1 million bpd over the course of the next few months, beginning with monthly production increases of 250,000 bpd in each of May and June.
Currently, the market is balanced, Novak said today, adding that if a deficit occurs, OPEC+ could always decide to pump more.
The ministers of the alliance are discussing a short format for next week’s meeting by scrapping the meeting of the ministers and leaving only the monitoring committee meeting, an OPEC source told Russia’s TASS news agency.
Currently, both meetings are planned to be held on April 28, Novak said today.
“I think the next meeting will be just monitoring the market,” an OPEC+ source told Reuters on Wednesday, suggesting that the gathering next week would only be a formality and a technical meeting to take stock of the market balances and compliance with the cuts.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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