Rosneft, Other Oil Companies Confirm Readiness to Cut Production – Official

TOKYO (Sputnik) — Russian energy giant Rosneft has confirmed its consent to reduce oil production in line with agreement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and countries which are not members of the organization, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Friday.

"All companies agree to reduce production," Novak said when asked whether Rosneft agreed to cut output.

Novak said Wednesday that Russia's 12 largest oil companies, who attended a meeting with him earlier on that day, reaffirmed their readiness to cut production.

The minister said Wednesday the Russian Energy Ministry would establish a working group to monitor reduction of production by oil companies, adding that it would gather twice a month. He said Russian companies would cut oil output voluntarily, without any Energy Ministry quotas for them.

On December 10, OPEC finished a meeting with non-OPEC countries in Vienna, at which non-OPEC countries decided to cut oil output by 558,000 barrels per day with Russia cutting the output by 300,000 barrels per day from January 2017. In November, OPEC agreed to cut oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day to 32.5 million barrels per day for the whole cartel from next year.