By Irina Slav
Russia has rejected a proposal by OPEC to deepen the oil production cuts agreed last December by another 1.5 million bpd, Reuters reported, adding Moscow has only agreed to extend current cuts that total 1.7 million bpd.
Energy Intelligence’s deputy bureau chief Amena Bakr tweeted that there is still some hope as Russia was currently discussing the issue with Saudi Arabia, but chances of an agreement seem slim after Reuters quoted a Moscow government source as saying the Russian position was not about to change.
The OPEC proposal of additional cuts of 1.5 million bpd envisaged cuts of 1 million bpd for OPEC and 500,000 bpd for its external partners, led by Russia, meaning Russia would have to cut the most. The total size of the cuts, if agreed, would reach 3.6 million bpd.
If the Russian position indeed does not change, this would put OPEC in an even more precarious situation than it already is. Earlier today UAE’s energy minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said he did not expect OPEC to go ahead and cut without Russia, even though his Nigerian counterpart Timipre Sylva admitted the cartel would have to cut even if Russia does not get on board with the additional cuts.
“That’s really not going to be very good for us but we expect a deal,” Sylva said as quoted by S&P Global Platts.
Iran’s energy minister BIjan Zanganeh said OPEC had “no plan B” if Russia rejected the 1.5-million-bpd cut proposal, which some called an ultimatum as the proposal was made before Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak joined OPEC in Vienna. He also reportedly said, however, that while Russia had not agreed to the proposal it hadn’t opposed it explicitly.
Oil was in free fall Friday, with Brent dropping almost 8 percent at $46.16 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate fell 7.8% at $42.33 at 10:20AM ET.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
Great news! Let it drop to $10 a barrel, Muscovy will collapse if it does.
Putin will invade OPEC next…
Russia have never cut oil production, even when they agreed to do it. The OPEC countries need to kick Muscovy out of this organisation.
The Russian stock market lost almost 6% on Friday alone, and has plunged by a quarter in the space of just six weeks — one of the biggest drops anywhere in the world.
It must be another CIA provocation…LMAO!
Maybe some hard times for them.
Two thirds of their GDP comes from oil and their ” break even ” point is
$50 per barrel. We are already below that.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-could-rock-russias-stable-isolated-economy-a69550
They deserve all the hard times they can get. And now that the USA is back in the oil and gas business I think their “hard times” will become permanent. 1st they budgeted on $100/barrel and then $50 and now what?….
It would be a good time for them to enter into an arm’s race like we did in the 80s just before the collapse of the USSR.
I think there is one now since Putin broke the INF treaty. He was probably banking that Trump would fold like Obama did. I think the big difference maker will be when the Space Force is up and running and we start to control Moskali satellites and put lasers up there to shoot down their missiles. It’s not that long from now I don’t think.
Most of what the Space Force is doing appears to be classified. General John Raymond repeatedly responded to questions during a hearing of the Armed Services Committee by telling representatives he would need to share such information with them privately in their offices.