Kazakhstan backs Saudi proposal to increase oil output under OPEC+ deal
ASTANA. June 17 (Interfax) - Kazakhstan supports Saudi Arabia's proposal for an additional increase in oil production by OPEC+ countries, Kazakh Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov said.
"Within the context of the eight, we're doing this [supporting Saudi Arabia's decision to additionally increase oil output]," Akkenzhenov told reporters.
Bloomberg was reported as saying earlier that Saudi Arabia wants OPEC+ countries to continue an accelerated increased in oil supplies in the coming months, since restoring lost market share is becoming increasingly important to it. Saudi Arabia is calling for also increasing the production quota by 411,000 barrels per day in August, and possibly also in September.
A source said Saudi Arabia is trying to wind down production restrictions as quickly as possible in order to take advantage of peak demand for oil in the Northern Hemisphere.
The agency said that at the last OPEC+ meeting at the end of May, where the countries agreed to again increase production by 411,000 bpd in July, like in June and May, Russia led a group of countries, including Algeria and Oman, that called for pausing increases to assess their impact, but the Saudi view prevailed.
Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Kuwait, Kazakhstan and Oman voluntarily cut their production by 2.2 million bpd in 2023 and starting in April planned to gradually wind down these restrictions at a rate of 130,000-140,000 bpd per month by October 2026. But in May they deviated from this plan, attributing the accelerated increase in output to the health of the market and its strong outlook.
In the period from January 2024 to April 2025, the amount of insufficiently reduced output reached 4.6 million bpd, with Iraq exceeding its production quota by almost 2 million bpd, Kazakhstan by 1.3 million bpd and Russia by 0.7 million bpd. These countries promised to compensate for the overproduction and presented schedules for doing so. Russia is fulfilling the agreements, while Iraq and Kazakhstan continue to violate them.
Kazakhstan, which launched new production capacity at the Tengiz field at the beginning of this year, promised to hold negotiations with companies and fulfil its obligations in April, but it again exceeded the quota by 400,000 bpd. Akkenzhenov said the country failed to meet its commitments to OPEC+ because it does not have the right to require international consortiums developing its largest oil fields to reduce production.
Deputy Energy Minister Alibek Zhamauov said Kazakhstan will not reduce production and notified OPEC of this. Kazakhstan has been producing about 1.8 million bpd since February, which is about 350,000-400,000 bpd more than its quota even without the need to compensate for past overproduction.
The IEA has said that, despite the increase in quotas, only Saudi Arabia will actually be able to increase production.
The next OPEC+ meeting, at which the countries will discuss quotas for August, is scheduled for July 6.
