OPEC Chief Sees Progress in Oil Cuts as Stockpiles Drop

Crude stockpiles are starting to decline in a sign that the production cuts implemented this year are bringing the market to balance, according to OPEC’s Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo.

“I remain cautiously optimistic that the market is already rebalancing," Barkindo told reporters in Baghdad. “We have started seeing stock levels coming down,” Bloomberg reported.

Record inventories accumulated since 2014 have been a drag on crude prices even as OPEC and some non-member producers curbed output.

Slow progress in bringing down those stockpiles is one reason six members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Oman back extending production cuts beyond June, with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait saying oil stockpiles need to fall to the five-year average.

Still, there are signs OPEC’s policy is starting to have an impact. Oil had its biggest weekly increase this year last week amid speculation OPEC will extend its deal to curb output, and after a US government report showed the nation’s refineries boosted crude use by the most in almost three years while fuel supplies fell.

Morgan Stanley said in a report that “less visible” crude stockpiles, including in China, Japan and floating storage around the world, have declined 72 million barrels this year.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, declined 0.3% to $53.39 a barrel. Prices jumped 4% last week.

Iraq, which initially sought an exemption from OPEC’s output cut, was 98% compliant in March, after production data was revised Saturday, Iraq’s Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi told reporters Sunday in Baghdad.

On Thursday, with one day left in the month, Iraq’s production was 4.46 million barrels a day for March, Falah Al-amri, director general of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization, told reporters.

Iraq plans to increase crude production capacity to 5 million barrels a day by the end of this year. Capacity is currently estimated at 4.7 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Higher prices as a result of the OPEC cuts will encourage more US shale production, US State Department official Alan Eyre said on Sunday. “Today’s oil price is the new normal,” he said.