On Wednesday, non-OPEC oil producer Kazakhstan vowed to compensate over the coming months for a lack of compliance with the voluntary cuts in the OPEC+ deal in January.
“Kazakhstan has always supported the initiatives of the OPEC+ member countries,” the country’s Energy Ministry said in a statement today.
Kazakhstan, as well as several other non-OPEC and OPEC producers part of the OPEC+ pact, pledged in November additional voluntary cuts of a total of 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first quarter of 2024. The reductions included a rollover of the extra Saudi production cut of 1 million bpd, which has been in force since July 2023.
In the latest voluntary cuts announced at the end of November, Kazakhstan said it would reduce its crude oil production by 82,000 bpd in the first quarter of 2024.
In January, however, Kazakhstan pumped more than its quota.
“Although Kazakhstan has overproduced in January 2024, it will compensate for the overproduced volumes over the next four months and will comply with its obligations of the production adjustments agreed upon at the 35th ONOMM held on 4 June 2023, and the additional voluntary production adjustments announced by some participating OPEC and participating non-OPEC countries in April 2023, and the subsequent adjustments in November 2023 for the months of February and March 2024,” Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said.
Within OPEC, crude oil production slumped by 350,000 bpd in January as the latest voluntary output cuts kicked in, but not all those who had pledged reductions delivered on their promises.
The OPEC member that under-delivered most notably was Iraq, the second-biggest producer in the cartel. Iraq cut its oil production by 98,000 bpd to 4.194 million bpd in January, according to the secondary sources in OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for February published on Tuesday. This compares with a pledged cut of 223,000 bpd.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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