Kurdistan Commits To OPEC+ Oil Output Cut

Kurdistan is committed to the OPEC+ oil production cut deal and will reduce output accordingly, the government of the semi-autonomous Iraqi region said in a statement following a meeting between Kurdish and Iraqi officials.

Reuters reported that at the meeting, the two sides had agreed that Kurdistan would report monthly oil production figures to Baghdad.

"We agreed on cutting oil production in line with OPEC +'s decision," the Kurdistan Regional Government's finance minister, Awat Sheikh Janab, told media after the meeting, as quoted by Kurdistan24. "We agreed in principle that we [the Kurdistan Region] are part of Iraq, and Iraq's compliance is also our responsibility," the Kurdish official added.

Iraq has committed to reduce its oil production by as much as 23 percent beginning next month. That would be down from an average daily of 4.5 million bpd at the moment. The portion of the total that would fall to Kurdistan to cut was not specified.

Two weeks ago, OPEC+ agreed to remove 9.7 million bpd of oil from the market, with the cuts beginning next month and remaining in effect until the end of June, after which the group will start to ramp up production gradually.

From 9.7 million bpd in May to June, the cuts will decline to 7.7 million bpd for the period July to December 2020, and then further to 5.8 million bpd until the end of April 2022.

So far, the decision has not had a positive effect on oil prices, even with the added weight of cuts from other oil producers outside the expanded block. On the contrary, Brent has fallen to about $27 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate was trading below $12 a barrel at the time of writing.

Last week, the energy ministers of Russia and Saudi Arabia said they were considering deepening the cuts further without providing any specific figures.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com 

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