Crude output deal for 2019 underway: Russia oil minister

OPEC and non-OPEC members are already considering a crude output deal for 2019, Russian energy minister told CNBC, immediately after the cartel of major crude producers agreed to raise production starting from July.

“We are planning to sign a new agreement by the end of this year,” Alexander Novak said at the OPEC summit in Vienna. “The conceptual framework of that agreement was shared with all the participants of today’s ministerial meeting, so that they could study it and make any amendments.”

His comments come after Saturday’s meeting between OPEC producers and non members. The oil producing allies, including Russia, agreed to raise oil output by a total of one million barrels per day (bpd) in order to balance supply and demand in the second half of the year.

The deal expires at the end of 2018, but Novak said that an additional proposal was already being planned.

“This agreement will, to a large part, be based on the monitoring of the market situation, on the creation and institutionalization of the governing body and the ability to take measures, if necessary, as was done in 2016,” he said.

The draft agreement would be considered again at the next meeting of the monitoring committee in September, Novak added, “with the view to sign it at the ministerial meeting at the end of the year.”

The minister said that this weekend’s deal to raise oil output by one million bdp “should be sufficient,” despite Russia originally arguing that a 1.5 million barrel hike should be implemented.

“We are not yet concerned in any way by this decision because the mechanism we have is quite flexible and allows us to take different decisions in the future,” he added.

As part of Saturday’s deal, Russia plans to increase its output by 200,000 bpd.

Source: CNBC