OPEC and non-OPEC meetings to be held tomorrow - source

Both ministerial meetings of OPEC countries and non-OPEC states will be held on Saturday, June 6, on one day, not on two as usually, a source participating in the talks said.

"We have started preparations for the meeting, OPEC will gather at 2 pm, while non-OPEC - at 4 pm Vienna time," he said, adding that "it is going to be a long and difficult night." The source also confirmed that extension of the current level of oil output reduction of 9.7 mln barrels per day after June is the main issue on the agenda.

Another source told TASS earlier that Russia and Saudi Arabia had already agreed extension of the agreement for at least one month.

The OPEC+ ministers disagreed about the date of the meeting after receiving preliminary compliance data for May. It turned out that Iraq, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan did not fully implement the oil production cut plan. Saudi Arabia and Russia demanded that they should remedy the situation, and that the meeting should be planned only after that (it was originally scheduled for June 9-10). However, after Russia and Saudi Arabia tentatively agreed on extending the current level of cuts for at least another month, it was proposed to hold the meeting earlier, on June 4, which would allow to form export schedules for July and supply prices on time. However, due to compliance issues the meeting was not held on June 4.

It became possible to hold the meeting this weekend as Iraq recognized the difficulties in reducing production and promised to catch up in July.

Meanwhile, the meeting of the OPEC+ technical committee and the ministerial monitoring committee, which always took place before the main meeting, were postponed to June 17-18, TASS sources reported. By that time, experts will receive more relevant data on production levels in May.