All Russian oil cos to cut output 19% from Feb level under OPEC+ deal, by 2 mln bpd in total - minister
MOSCOW. April 29 (Interfax) - Russia's Energy Ministry has proportionally distributed the quota to cut oil production under the OPEC+ deal among all players on the Russian oil market, including small companies and the operators of production sharing agreement (PSA) projects, and Russia as a whole is supposed to reduce oil output by 19% compared to the February 2020 level or by 2 million barrels per day, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with Interfax.
"We're taking February 2020 as the baseline for our companies, and from it we are counting the reduction to 8.5 million barrels per day in accordance with how this is set for Russia under the agreement. The reduction there is about 2 million barrels or 19% from the level of February 2020," Novak said.
The whole amount of the reduction has been proportionally distributed among all companies, including small oil companies and the operators of PSA projects.
"Yes, we distributed evenly among all companies that produce in Russia. This is one of the principles of the distribution of quotas that we discussed and that we believe is right - everyone should carry the same burden, make the same contribution in order to ensure the balancing of the market and emergence from the crisis situation as soon as possible," Novak said.
The issue of possible financial discrimination due to the fact that condensate has been excluded from the calculations and it accounts for a different share in the output of different producers was not raised by companies, he said.
"No, this issue was not raised when discussing our participation in the deal. We discussed it back at the end of last year, when we made the decision to exclude gas condensate. But this was, among other things, also the position of our companies, so we believe that this is an absolutely reasonable decision, because gas condensate production is uneven, like a separate indicator of a separate sector," Novak said, adding that this issue was not discussed in the current distribution of quotas.
"No. Everyone agreed to count according to the same principle as at the end of last year," Novak said.