
Participating countries in the Declaration of Corporation by member and non-member nations of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had contributed to adjusting downward global oil supply by 2.6 billion barrels of oil by the end of February 2021, the cartel said.
It also said the development has accelerated the rebalancing of the oil market.
The cartel disclosed these at its meeting with non-members of OPEC yesterday,where it also agreed to increase oil production gradually from May to July, this year.
The development was in response to both internal and external pressure to supply more crude to the recovering global economy.
The meeting which was chaired by Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, and Co-Chair HE Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, also approved the adjustment of the production levels for May, June and July 2021.
It said it will continue to adhere to the mechanism agreed upon in the 12th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting (December 2020) to hold monthly OPEC and non[1]OPEC Ministerial Meetings to assess market conditions and decide on production level adjustments for the following month, with every adjustment being no more than 0.5 mb/d.
The Ministers in a communiqué, welcomed the positive performance of participating countries. Overall conformity reached 115 per cent in February 2021, reinforcing the trend of aggregate high conformity by participating countries.
The Minister reviewed the monthly report prepared by the Joint Technical Committee (JTC), including the crude oil production data for February.
They recognized the improvements in the market supported by global vaccination programmes and stimulus packages in key economies but noted that the volatility observed in recent weeks warrants a continued cautious and vigilant approach in monitoring market developments.
The Meeting observed that in February, oil stocks in OECD countries fell for the seventh consecutive month, but still remained above the 2015-2019 average.
The Ministers expressed their thanks to those countries that have submitted plans for previous compensation shortfalls and continue to work towards compensating for overproduced volumes. They urged all participants to achieve full conformity to reach the objective of market rebalancing and avoid undue delay in the process. In this regard, the Ministers agreed to the request by several countries that have not yet completed their compensation for an extension of the compensation period until the end of September 2021.
The Ministers agreed to that participating countries with outstanding overproduced volumes will submit their plans for implementation of any required compensation for overproduced volumes to the OPEC Secretariat by 15 April 2021.