IEA’s Birol Again Urges OPEC+ to Narrow Their Oil Production Gap

International Energy Agency Director Fatih Birol said on Wednesday that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, the cartel is known as OPEC+, must narrow the gap between their production targets and actual production.

“There is a significant difference between the targets that OPEC+ countries set in terms of their production levels, and what is produced today,” Birol told a conference in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

“It will be important for OPEC+ to narrow this gap and hopefully provide more volumes to the market,” he said.

The OPEC+ cartel has raised its production target by 400,000 bpd each month since August, while easing production curbs.

The International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly report that the gap between target and production in January widened to 900,000 bpd.

Brent crude was trading at $93.19 a barrel by 0253 GMT, down 10 cents, after falling 3.3 percent overnight after Russia announced the withdrawal of some of its forces from locations near the Ukrainian border, but the United States has not verified this yet.

UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said on Monday that tension between Russia and the West is rising oil prices and there is no major shortage that justifies accelerated increases in production.