U.S. Secretary of Energy praises new OPEC+ agreement

U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said that the energy sector of the United States will soon recover from the recent ‘price wars’ on global oil markets and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and will emerge ‘stronger than ever before.’

Russia and Saudi Arabia have finalized a "historic deal", thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump’s leadership, he believes.   The price war that "has caused unprecedented uncertainty in global oil markets" was ended, the minister noted.

"I commend the President for his strong leadership and all parties for coming to a consensus that will benefit nations around the globe who are feeling the impacts of this serious market instability," TASS cited Brouillette as saying.

"While the demand disruption caused by COVID-19 and the price war have greatly harmed the industry, I am confident it will soon bounce back stronger than ever before," the U.S. Secretary of Energy stressed.

A videoconference meeting of the OPEC+ member states on Sunday ended with an agreement on oil production cuts. The new deal envisages an aggregate reduction in oil production by 9.7 million barrels a day in May-June, by eight million barrels a day in July-December, and further reduction by six million barrels a day between January 2021 and April 2022. Russia and Saudi Arabia will cut their daily oil output by 2.5 million barrels each from the level of 11 million barrels. Other nations will decrease production by 23% on the October 2018 level. Mexico, which refused to accept a quota of 400,000 barrels a day, will cut production by 100,000 barrels. The remaining 300,000 barrels will be compensated by the United States, which has committed to cut daily production by 250,000 barrels a day.