Russia: OPEC+ will factor in weak U.S. output at December meeting - TASS
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's energy ministry said on Monday that OPEC and its oil-exporting allies would factor in the slowdown of U.S. oil output growth when they meet to discuss their output agreement in December, the TASS news agency reported.
It is too premature, however, to talk about deeper production cuts, TASS cited Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin as saying.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other producers - a group known as OPEC+ - have since January implemented a deal to cut oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day to support the market.
The agreement runs to end-March 2020 and producers meet to review policy on Dec. 5-6.
"The OPEC+ mechanism has shown it is efficient, but it is not efficient infinitely," Sorokin is quoted as saying.
"If you look at the U.S. you'd also see quite a pronounced slowing down of production growth in the past three to four months," he said.
A shale boom, led by output increases in Texas and North Dakota, helped make the United States the biggest oil producer in the world, above Saudi Arabia and Russia.
However, the rate of growth has slowed this year as U.S. energy firms have reduced the number of oil rigs as producers follow through on plans to cut spending on new drilling this year.
The United States is not a party to the global output cut deal.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; writing by Tom Balmforth and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Jan Harvey and Louise Heavens)
