VIENNA -- OPEC and key non-OPEC oil producers are near their target of taking 1.8 million barrels of crude a day off global markets less than two months after agreeing to do so in efforts to push up the price of crude, Russia's energy minister said Sunday.
Alexander Novak's upbeat comments to reporters came at the end of the first meeting of a joint OPEC-non-OPEC committee set up to monitor compliance to the Dec. 10 agreement.
In that deal, Russia and 10 other nations outside OPEC decided to join with the 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce the daily amount of oil on sale by 1.8 million barrels in the first six months of this year.
Novak said firm figures wouldn't be available before the end of the month on what already had been achieved. But he estimated that "close to" 1.5 million barrels a day had been cut as of late January, adding that many countries are exceeding promised reductions.
Crude oil sold for more than $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014. Prices bottomed out below $30 a barrel in January 2016 and seldom rose much above $50 for the rest of the year, prompting December's concerted action by the producers within and outside OPEC.
On Friday, benchmark U.S. crude was selling at $52.42 a barrel in New York, while a barrel of Brent crude, used to price international oils, fetched $55.49 in London.
Novak said his country, which committed to the largest cut of 300,000 barrels a day, already had trimmed production by 100,000 barrels -- double its projected target of 50,000 barrels by late January.
The announced reductions come after years of failed attempts, with individual OPEC members ignoring calls to hew to production targets in an attempt to maximize sales and OPEC outsiders showing little interest in cooperating with the oil cartel.
Algeria's oil minister defended the production cuts as beneficial for the United States.
"OPEC is currently helping the U.S.," Noureddine Boutarfa said Saturday in Vienna. "The price recovery is helping U.S. companies, the U.S. industry, the U.S. economy."
OPEC's two biggest suppliers to the U.S. shrugged off a vow by President Donald Trump to end dependence on the group's oil.
The U.S. is "closely integrated in the global energy market," Saudi Arabia's Energy and Industry Minister Khalid Al-Falih said in Vienna. His Venezuelan counterpart, Nelson Martinez, said he expects his country's crude exports to the world's top consumer to remain stable.
"The positions that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia take in global energy are very important for global economic stability," Al-Falih said. He added that Saudi Arabia was looking forward to working with the Trump administration.
Just after his inauguration Friday, Trump said he was "committed to achieving energy independence from the OPEC cartel and any nations hostile to our interests," by exploiting "vast untapped domestic energy reserves," according to a plan posted on the White House website. The U.S. imported about 3 million barrels a day from OPEC last year, with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela accounting for 1.81 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Venezuela's Martinez played down any concern that his country's shipments to the U.S. might dwindle under a Trump administration.
"The export volumes will be maintained," he said. "There is a lot of interdependence in the world of energy. It's good to maintain it for everyone's good."
The new administration also said it would "work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy."
Saudi Arabia exported an average of 1.08 million barrels a day of crude to the U.S. in 2016, while Venezuela shipped about 733,000 barrels a day and Iraq some 400,000 barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Al-Falih suggested Saudi Arabia could always export its oil somewhere else, if the U.S. stopped buying.
"Oil is fungible, so it flows around -- what doesn't get sold in one market can be sold in another," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by George Jahn of The Associated Press; and by Angelina Rascouet, Grant Smith, Anna Shiryaevskaya and Sam Wilkin of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 01/23/2017