The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has met and proposed a further cut in crude oil production, after the coronavirus outbreak curbed global oil demand growth forecast for 2020 from 1.1 mb/d (December 2019 forecast) to 0.48 mb/d in 2020. Accordingly, the OPEC conference will recommand a further adjustment of 1.5 mb/d until 30 June 2020 to the next OPEC and non-OPEC meeting; the cut would be applied pro-rata between OPEC members (1 mb/d) and non-OPEC producing countries (0.5 mb/d). This production cut will have to be approved by non-OPEC producers, such as Russia, Kazakhstan or Oman.
In December 2018, the so-called OPEC+ (grouping OPEC members and allied oil producers) agreed to jointly reduce crude oil production by 1.2 mb/d, effective as of January 2019 for an initial period of six months, in an attempt to strengthen global oil prices. The production cuts were shared among OPEC countries (0.8 mb/d, Iran, Libya and Venezuela being exempted) and non-OPEC countries such as Russia (0.4 mb/d). Most of the actual reduction in OPEC's production comes from production losses in Iran and Venezuela. In July 2019, the parties decided to extend voluntary production adjustments for an additional period of nine months, from 1 July 2019 to 31 March 2020. In February 2020, OPEC+ agreed to cut crude oil production by an additional 500,000 bbl/d until their next meeting in early March 2020. This agreement leads to total adjustments of 1.7 mb/d. In addition, Saudi Arabia decided to continue its additional voluntary contribution of 400,000 bbl/d, leading to adjustments of more than 2.1 mb/d. Russia agreed a 300,000 bbl/d quota during the first quarter of 2020, excluding gas condensate.