MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Arabia and Russia are firmly committed to achieving oil market stability and expediting a rebalancing of the market, the energy ministers of the two countries said in a joint statement, said Hydrocarbonprocesing.
Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Russian counterpart Alexander Novak held a phone conversation as part of their consultations on oil market developments, the statement said.
“We are also pleased with the recent signs of improvements in economic and market indicators, especially the growth in oil demand and the ease in concerns about storage limits as various countries around the globe begin to emerge from their stringent lockdowns,” the ministers said.
They said they were “confident that our partners within OPEC+... will comply with the OPEC+ agreement.” OPEC and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, agreed last month to reduce output by 9.7 million bpd for May and June, a record production cut.
Saudi Arabia on Monday said it would voluntarily deepen oil output cuts from June by 1 million barrels per day, saying the new reductions were designed to expedite draining a global supply glut and rebalancing the oil market. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates both joined Saudi Arabia and also pledged to cut more than their commitments under the OPEC+ supply pact by a total of 180,000 bpd.
The joint statement said Novak welcomed the additional voluntary substantial production cuts made by Saudi Arabia and the steps that United Arab Emirates and Kuwait took to support Saudi efforts. The statement said such action was needed to help to expedite the rebalancing of the oil market.
Producers will slowly relax the production curbs under the OPEC+ agreement after June, but supply reductions will remain in force until to April 2022.
Sources told Reuters this week that OPEC and its allies want to maintain existing oil cuts beyond June rather than scaling them back to help to shore up prices and demand, which has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and PP.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 383,760 tonnes in the first two month of 2020, up by 14% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased due to the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 192,760 tonnes in January-February 2020, down by 6% year on year. Homopolymer PP accounted for the main decrease in imports.
MRC