Kuwait to discuss extending OPEC deal in late March: minister

Kuwait is planning to discuss extending the current OPEC production deal after the March meeting of the ministerial committee appointed to ensure commitment to output cuts, state-run Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported, citing Essam Al-Marzouq, minister of oil, water and electricity.

OPEC member’s compliance rate with production cuts reached around 140 percent in February, he said.

Al-Marzouq attributed the fall in output to the large cuts made by Saudi Arabia, in order to increase confidence in OPEC’s output cut agreement.

Oil producers outside the cartel, however, have made between 50 percent and 60 percent of their targeted cuts, he said.

OPEC members agreed on a deal last November to curtail oil production between January and June this year from 33.8 million barrels a day (bbl) to 32.5 million bbl, in an attempt to shore up market prices.

Oil producers outside the group, led by Russia, pledged the following month to cut output by a total of 558,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Compliance with production cuts has typically been shaky in the cartel’s history. However, OPEC and non-member producers that were part of the deal achieved an 86 percent compliance rate in January 2017, according to the ministerial monitoring committee.

The committee’s next meeting will be held March 25-26 in Kuwait.