The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure has affirmed that the UAE is a longstanding and committed member of OPEC, and OPEC+, and have been a reliable partner in the current OPEC+ agreement, delivering compliance of 103% throughout its 2-year term.

If agreed, the OPEC+ alliance's collective production cuts would shrink by about one-third by the end of the year to about 3.76 million b/d, from July's 5.76 million b/d.

OPEC+ negotiations on August production levels will pick up in earnest on June 29, with a meeting of the delegate-level advisory Joint Technical Committee, before the nine-country Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and Russia convene on June 30.

Despite the production gains, the looser quotas meant OPEC+ compliance stayed mostly steady at 111.45% compared to 111.16% in April,

Overall conformity to the production adjustments was 114% in April (including Mexico), ... to gradually return 2 million barrels a day (mb/d) of the adjustments to the market, with the pace being determined according to market conditions.

Russia, the largest non-OPEC partner in the alliance, has increasingly flouted its cap over the last several months, with its excess production soaring to 877,000 b/d.

OPEC+ officials said they see no reason to be alarmed, and the group's production is set to rise anyway.

The Sinopec award comes on the heels of an agreement between Iraq and Total to jointly work on developing four associated gas and solar power projects.

With the production gains, OPEC+ compliance with its quotas slipped to 111% in March, compared with 113.5% in February, juiced by Saudi Arabia voluntarily cutting an additional 1 million b/d since January.

The OPEC+ alliance will raise its collective output caps by 350,000 b/d in May, another 350,000 b/d in June, and 441,000 b/d in July.