ASTANA (KazInform) — Kazakhstan will continue fulfilling its obligations to OPEC in regards to the oil production level cuts, said Minister of Energy Kanat Bozumbayev at a briefing in Astana.

Bozumbayev reminded of the OPEC+ ministerial meeting held December 7 for discussing oil production cuts. He said the OPEC and non-OPEC countries are supposed to cut daily output in 2019 up to 1,2 mln barrels. “Meanwhile, OPEC countries will cut oil production by 800,000 bpd and non-OPEC states by 400,000 bpd," he added.

The Kazakh Minister emphasized that his country will strictly commit to its obligations in 2019, i.e. the country will cut its oil production by 40,000 bpd:

We expect that oil production in March, April and May 2019 will be much lower than the indicators set which can be explained by some factors such as shutdown of the country’s largest deposits — Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan — for overhaul. We also expect output decline at mature deposits of Kyzylorda and Aktobe regions. For this reason, we hope that we will fulfil our obligations to the OPEC.

Nonetheless, Bozumbayev said oil production in Kazakhstan in 2018 will be 90.3 mln tonnes or up 4.7% from last year (86.2 mln tonnes).