Russia claims it cut its oil production by 700,000 barrels in March amid sanctions

The Kremlin anticipated last February that it would cut its production by 500,000 barrels per day from March to December – an equivalent to 5% of its production – after the G7 and the European Union imposed a ceiling on the purchase price of its oil.

Thus, according to sources close to the Russian Ministry of Energy, the effective cut was 40% higher than originally announced.

According to Russia, the reduction would be made based on February production, whose market estimates placed it at 10.1 million barrels per day.

However, the amount of oil that Russia actually produces is uncertain as these figures are inconsistent with its data on maritime exports and shipments to its domestic refineries, according to the Bloomberg agency.

This is reinforced by the fact that the country decided last year to make its energy data confidential given its “sensitive” nature, which makes it difficult to know the magnitude of the cut in production, beyond what officials have known.

If the reduction in Russian production is effective, it would add further pressure to a market whose reference values ​​were already impacted this week, after the announcement by the member countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies (OPEC+). to reduce its production by 1.16 million barrels per day.

This cut communicated by the oil cartel – which brought the price of a barrel of values ​​close to US$ 70 to exceed US$ 80 – is added to the previously announced 2 million barrels per day that is in force until the end of this year.

The idea of ​​the producing countries is to raise the price of a barrel after reaching a 15-month low.

However, analysts are divided: some believe that this decision could lead to a return to US$100 a barrel, while others doubt that this will happen in times of global economic slowdown and, therefore, with declining demand.