The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced on Thursday that Nigeria and other participating countries in the Declaration of Corporation by member and non-member nations of the organization have so far reduced crude oil production by 2.6 billion barrels.

In a statement issued at the end of the 15th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting which took place via videoconference, the ministers announced that the participating countries contributed in cutting down this volume of oil between April 2020 and February 2021 in order to balance the global oil market.

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The statement read in part, “The ministers noted that since the April 2020 meeting, OPEC and non-OPEC participating countries in the DoC had contributed to adjusting downward global oil supply by 2.6 billion barrels of oil by the end of February 2021, which has accelerated the rebalancing of the oil market.”

The ministers expressed thanks to countries that had submitted plans for previous oil compensation shortfalls and continued to work towards compensating for overproduced volumes. They urged all participants to achieve full conformity to reach the objective of market rebalancing and avoid undue delay in the process.

In the light of this, the ministers agreed to the request by several countries that had not yet completed their oil compensation for an extension of the compensation period until the end of September 2021.

The ministers also agreed that participating countries with outstanding overproduced volumes would submit their plans for implementation of any required compensation for overproduced volumes to the OPEC secretariat by April 15, 2021. “These outcomes are in line with the historic decisions taken at the 10th (Extraordinary) OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting on April 12, 2020 to adjust downwards overall crude oil production, and subsequent decisions,” the statement said.