Saudi Arabia: Oil giant wants to cut production by one million barrels from July

Zoom Image

An oil field in Saudi Arabia

Photograph:

ALI JAREKJI/ REUTERS

Saudi Arabia wants to produce less oil in the near future – in order to support prices. Starting in July, daily production will be reduced by one million barrels (159 liters each) for at least a month, the country's energy ministry said. This will bring the voluntary cut to 1.5 million barrels per day, and oil production will then amount to nine million barrels per day.

The move is part of an agreement reached by the oil cartel Opec+. The alliance of 23 countries had agreed on Sunday in Vienna after hours of negotiations on a continuation of the funding cuts. According to this, around 40 million barrels (159 liters each) per day are to be produced in the coming year. According to calculations by the Russian agency Tass, this means a reduction in total OPEC+ production by 1.39 million barrels per day.

Oil price continues to fall

Most recently, in April, a production cut of 1.66 million barrels (159 liters each) per day until the end of the year was decided to stabilize the oil price.

Apart from a brief rise in April, the price of oil has been falling for about a year. In mid-2022, a barrel of OPEC oil cost around $115, now it's about $75. Verbund had already reacted to this development in October 2022 and decided to cut production by two million barrels a day. Allianz has a global market share of about 40 percent.

atb/dpa/AP