Major global oil producers have almost fully complied with the crude production cut deal over the last six month, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday.
“The countries showed an unprecedented high level of discipline and compliance, which over six months stands at a level close to 100 percent, and in some countries even more than 100 percent,” Novak said.
The Russian energy minister spoke at the OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), a panel tasked with tracking the implementation of the Vienna Agreement, in St. Petersburg.
Earlier, Novak said that the initial pact had managed to eliminate an extra 350 million barrels of crude from the market.
The committee addressed increasing production in Nigeria and Libya, which have been exempted from the pact.
Kuwait's oil minister, Essam al-Marzouq, called effects of overproduction by Libya and Nigeria negligible and the media hype in this regard inflated.
JMMC is not expected to recommend the two countries cap their production.
“Output cuts by Libya and Nigeria would be next to impossible considering Libya was just re-emerging from the civil war,” said Kaname Gokon, strategist for commodities brokerage Okato Shoji in Tokyo, as cited by the agency.
Al-Marzouq said that overall compliance on oil production cuts by the cartel and other countries participating in the deal was good, stressing that deeper curbs were possible.
Crude prices gained almost one percent on Monday with Brent crude trading at $48.48 per barrel by 10:30am GMT, and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at $46.11 a barrel.
On Sunday, OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo highlighted a slower-than expected progress in rebalancing of the oil market. However, Barkindo expects the progress to speed up in the second half of 2017.
OPEC and Russia have been trying to stabilize crude oil prices which have more than halved since 2014. However, prices have slumped since the agreement in May to cap oil production through to March 2018 due to increasing output in the United States.
Barkindo expressed hope that in time the US will join the production cuts agreement.