Saudi Arabia extends voluntary oil production cuts until end of 2023

6 September 2023 (Anatolia) The Saudi Ministry of Energy announced on Tuesday the extension of the Kingdom's voluntary reduction of one million barrels per day, another three months to include the period from October until the end of December 2023.

The previous agreement was that the voluntary cut would end at the end of September.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted an official source in the Ministry of Energy as saying that the Kingdom will extend the voluntary reduction of one million barrels per day, which began to take effect in July 2023, for another three months, that is, until the end of December 2023.

The source said that the Kingdom's production in October, November and December will reach about 9 million barrels per day.

The source indicated that the decision to reduce will be reviewed on a monthly basis, to consider increasing the reduction or increasing production. "This reduction is in addition to a voluntary reduction previously announced by the Kingdom in April 2023, which extends until the end of December 2024," by 500,000 barrels per day.

This means that the Kingdom's voluntary reduction amounts to 1.5 million barrels per day, in addition to another mandatory reduction for the "OPEC+" alliance that began to be implemented in early November, as a percentage and proportion of the Kingdom's total production.

In early November, the alliance began a 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd) cut in member production that expires in December, distributing the cut based on the volume of production of each of the 23 members of the alliance.

The Saudi source stressed that this additional voluntary reduction comes to enhance the precautionary efforts made by the "OPEC +" countries with the aim of supporting the stability and balance of oil markets.