Algeria announces implementation of voluntary oil output cut by 51,000 bpd

Algeria announced, on Thursday, the implementation of a voluntarily cut oil production by a total of 51,000 barrels per day (bpd) starting from 1 January, as part of an OPEC+ alliance agreement to voluntarily cut oil production by a total of 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2024, Anadolu Agency reports.

In December, several OPEC+ countries announced that they had agreed to the voluntarily cut oil production which include Saudi Arabia by 1 million bpd, Iraq by 223,000 bpd, the United Arab Emirates by 163,000 bpd, Kuwait by 135,000 bpd, Kazakhstan by 82,000 bpd, Algeria by 51,000 bpd and Oman by 42,000 bpd.

The Algerian announcement came in a statement issued by the Algerian Ministry of Energy and Mines, following the participation of Minister, Mohamed Arkab, in the 52nd ministerial meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

“In accordance with Algeria’s commitment, a voluntary and additional reduction in crude oil production by 51 thousand barrels per day was implemented, starting from the beginning of January 2024, for 3 months,” the statement quoted Minister Arkab as saying.

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He pointed out that the OPEC+ countries are carefully and constantly monitoring developments in the global oil market, noting that the meeting discussed the risks associated with global economic growth, especially the slowdown in industrialised countries’ activity and the moderate recovery in emerging market economies.

He pointed out that these risks may affect the demand for oil, despite the “wide availability of supply in the market”.

On Thursday, the OPEC+ alliance kept the voluntary crude production cut unchanged, until the next meeting scheduled on 3 April.

According to the agreement, Russia will cut 500,000 bpd for the same period from the average export levels of May and June of 2023. It will consist of 300,000 bpd of crude oil and 200,000 bpd of refined products.

The voluntary cuts will be in place from January until March of 2024 and will be returned gradually, subject to market conditions “to support market stability”.

The voluntary cuts will be in addition to the current collective production cuts of 3.6 million bpd.

The collective output cuts include a 2 million bpd production cut implemented in October 2022 and 1.6 million bpd, ongoing since May 2023.

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