Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed to ask the technical committee to develop a procedure for changing the methodology for monitoring the OPEC+ deal to reduce oil production, the Russian Energy Ministry said following a telephone conversation between Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Al-Falih, TASS reports.
"We touched upon the question of changing the monitoring methodology in the light of our objective to reduce the level of deal implementation to 100% according to the statement of OPEC and non-OPEC countries. The Ministers agreed to ask the Joint Technical Committee to develop appropriate procedures and take it to the Monitoring Committee," the Ministry said.
The ministers also exchanged information on their countries' plans for oil production.
OPEC countries and their 11 allies, including Russia, agreed at a scheduled meeting in June to return the production to a 100% compliance with the terms of the output reduction deal. In May, the level reached 150%, that is, the deal participants cut production by 2.8 mln barrels per day instead of 1.8 mln barrels, as stipulated in the agreement. The OPEC quota in this agreement is 1.2 mln barrels.
Thus, collectively all countries should raise production by 1 mln barrels per day. However, the problem is that only eight members out of 24, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, can do this in a timely manner.
The countries that do not have free capacities for increasing production include Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela due to economic crisis.
Iran fears that other countries will simply redistribute the quotas of other participants.