Russia cuts oil output nearly to OPEC+ target level in July - Deputy PM Novak

MOSCOW. July 23 (Interfax) - Russia cut oil production in July nearly to the target level that the country must achieve when accounting for the voluntary reductions within OPEC+, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

"We have nearly reached it [the required level of oil output within OPEC+]. We are close to it. We have somewhat 'underperformed' the target at full volume, so to speak," Novak said.

Novak said that the Energy Ministry would send the OPEC Secretariat a schedule for offsetting the barrels produced above the quota going forward.

Countries that have not reduced production enough as per the OPEC+ agreements will offset those volumes until the end of September 2025.

Russia's official OPEC+ oil production quota for 2024 is 9.95 million barrels per day or 9.45 million bpd, given the voluntary production cut announced in April 2023 for the whole of 2024.

From the second to the end of the third quarter, Russia said it would reduce production and exports in variants of 471,000 bpd: in April, Russia was supposed to reduce production by 350,000 bpd and exports 121,000 bpd and in May by 400,000 bpd and 71,000 bpd, respectively while in June and up to the end of November it will only reduce production, by 471,000 bpd.

That is, in April, Russian production should have been 9.1 million bpd, in May - 9.05 million bpd and in June - 8.979 million bpd, which corresponds to Saudi Arabia's quota.

Russia overshot its target by 560,000 bpd for April-June, according to data published by OPEC.