“Today, more than ever, international cooperation is important,” Novak said in a speech at an energy forum in the Russian city of St Petersburg.

OPEC and 10 non-OPEC partners, led by Russia, agreed in December to cut a combined 1.2 million b/d of production in the first half of 2019.

In all, OPEC's 14 members pumped 30.09 million b/d in May, a 170,000 b/d fall from April and the lowest since February 2015, before Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo joined and Qatar was still a member,

Even so, OPEC said it would tread cautiously. The organization forecast that 2019 oil consumption will rise 1.14 million b/d year-on-year, a downward revision of 70,000 b/d from last month's report, as "significant downside risks from escalating trade disputes spilling over to global demand growth remain."

Moscow, 5 June 2019. Today, during the official visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping to the Russian Federation, PAO NOVATEK (“NOVATEK” and/or the “Company”), Sinopec and Gazprombank signed Heads of Agreement (“Agreement”) on establishing a joint venture to market LNG and natural gas to end-customers in the People’s Republic of China.

Total world crude oil production increased sharply in 2018 by 1.213 million barrels/day (mb/d), or 1.6%, as compared to 2017, to reach 75.78 mb/d, marking a historical high and the highest annual growth since 2015.

Saudi Arabia produced 9.65 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in May, a Saudi industry source said, a deeper cut than its target set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+.

Russia’s recent oil output is below the 11.18 billion bpd target Moscow has pledged as part of an international deal among producers to curb production to support prices.

Although compliance to the cuts had a slow start, OPEC's JMMC noted in a press release following their meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that compliance had hit a record high of 168% in April 2019. Average conformity reached 120% since January 2019.

Russia’s GDP unexpectedly grew just 0.5% in the first quarter, below all 14 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. That compares with a 2.7% increase in the last three months of 2018, which was the highest in more than six years as crude output reached a record 11.45mn barrels a day in December, according to ministry data as Opec+ curbs eased.