Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources Khalid al-Falih believes that all countries participating in the OPEC and other states' agreement to reduce oil production agree to extend it until the end of the first quarter of 2018. Agency Bloomberg quotes the words of al-Falih: "We think that everyone agrees. Everyone with whom I spoke made it clear that extending the agreement for nine months is a wise decision ". He said that, in his view, the extension of the agreement before the end of the first quarter of 2018 will help achieve the goal of reducing commercial reserves of oil and oil products in the world to an average of five years. Recall, OPEC on November 30 last year in Vienna agreed to reduce its production by 1.2 million barrels per day from the October level. In addition, 11 non-OPEC countries on December 10 agreed to cut their production by 558,000 barrels per day, including Russia - by 300 thousand.

It is specified that the agreement is concluded for the first half of 2017 with the possibility of extending. The extension will be considered at a ministerial meeting of the monitoring committee on May 24, and then at a meeting of OPEC and countries outside the cartel, on May 25. On Monday, May 15, al-Falih, in a joint statement with the head of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak, announced that both countries on May 24-25 will offer to extend the agreement on the current conditions for nine months - until April 1, 2018.