(Bloomberg) -- Russian data show the nation’s crude production in October was almost in line with its target under the OPEC+ agreement, according to people familiar with figures from the Energy Ministry.
The nation produced 8.973 million barrels a day of crude last month, the people said on condition of anonymity because the figures aren’t public. That’s up by about 3,000 barrels a day compared with September, when Moscow said it pumped below the OPEC+ target, and just 5,000 barrels a day above the nation’s quota for the October.
The Energy Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment.
Russia has historically been one of the principal laggards in implementing the agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies. Moscow reaffirmed its “full commitment” to the deal last week, just two days before the alliance delayed for a second time its plan to increase production.
“Russia has reached the levels that we voluntarily took upon ourselves as production commitments,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Wednesday in comments in Sochi broadcast by state Rossiya 24 TV.
Russia has been implementing two sets of curbs to its crude production. The first 500,000 barrel-a-day reduction was announced early last year, followed by a 471,000 barrel-a-day cut promised in March that is set to remain in place until the end of December.
Moscow also pledged to make an additional reduction of 10,000 barrels a day in October to compensate for pumping above its OPEC+ target earlier this year. Russia will submit an updated compensation schedule to the OPEC secretariat, according to a statement last week.
All the cuts are made from the baseline level of 9.949 million barrels a day.
Russia classified official oil output data following its invasion of Ukraine, which prompted Western sanctions targeting a key industry for the nation’s economy. That left oil market watchers with just a few indicators, such as seaborne oil exports and domestic refinery runs, to follow trends in the industry.
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Earlier this year, Moscow also changed the way it reports data used to compile OPEC+ production estimates, making an independent assessment of its compliance with output cuts more difficult. The Energy Ministry now reports the data in barrels per day and appears to be using a ton-to-barrel ratio at the lower end of the traditional conversion factors used by analysts for Russia’s crudes.
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