VIENNA (Ruptly) – Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud announced on Thursday that OPEC+ would maintain oil production cuts until May after a virtual conference, with minor exceptions for Russia and Kazakhstan, amid concerns over the potential fragile economic recovery.

Production will continue at March levels, except for Russia and and Kazakhstan, who it was agreed could boost production by 130,000 and 20,000 barrels per day respectively. Concerns over economic weakness surrounding the slow vaccination rate in the world along with the new strains of the virus were motivating factors behind the decision.

Bin Salman stated:

Considering the situation that Russia and Kazakhstan are into in terms of their domestic consumption and refining requirements and what have you. We had this consent they can move forward their schedule for the month of April by about 150. Everybody is going to maintain the freeze on 350.

Not only that, I think we have all congregated to the idea that we will continue the business as usual which is meeting every month, and subject to these meetings we will figure out what we will do with the remaining 1.29 million remaining to be brought to the market by 2020 all the way to April 2022. That’s what has been agreed.