Ryad (AFP)
The Saudi Energy Ministry said on Monday that it had asked state-owned Aramco to cut production by a million barrels a day starting in June, in an effort to boost oil prices.
This decline would reduce production in the country, the world's largest oil exporter, to 7.5 million barrels per day, said the Ministry of Energy in a statement quoted by the official agency SPA.
For his part, the Kuwaiti oil minister Khaled al-Fadhel said that his country would reduce its production by 80,000 barrels per day, in order to support the Saudi initiative.
"Kuwait supports Saudi Arabia's efforts to restore balance to the oil market," Fadhel said in a statement quoted by the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - of which Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are members - as well as its main partners, united within OPEC +, agreed on April 12 on a reduction in their production of 9.7 million barrels per day (mbd) over two months, an exceptional measure that came into effect on May 1.
According to the April agreement, Saudi Arabia has already cut production to 8.5 million barrels, reaching its lowest level in over a decade.
"The kingdom seeks by this new reduction to encourage OPEC countries and producing countries outside of OPEC to respect their promises to reduce their production and to make further reductions in order to support market stability world oil company, "said the Saudi Ministry of Energy.
Despite the massive reductions that came into effect on the 1st, prices have so far not recovered, in the absence of a real recovery in demand, paralyzed by the crisis linked to the new coronavirus.
The price of a barrel is currently around 30 dollars.
© 2020 AFP