OPEC in Full Compliance with production cuts

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The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Wednesday cartel members had cut production to 31.928 million bpd in March, according to estimates from secondary sources in its monthly report.

OPEC’s 11 members with supply targets cut output to 29.761 million bpd compared to the 29.804 million target, suggesting a compliance of 104%.

Saudi Arabia, the largest produce in the cartel, cut output to 9.90 million bpd from February’s level of 10.011 million.

OPEC also raised its forecast for world oil demand in 2017 to 1.27 million bpd from the prior 1.26 million.

It did cut the estimate for OPEC demand this year by 130,000 bpd to 32.22 million due to higher supply from non-OPEC members.

Along those lines, OPEC said that expectations for non-OPEC oil output growth were 400,000 bpd for March and 580 bpd for April.

After the report, U.S. crude futures gained 0.32% to $53.57 by 7:28AM ET (11:28GMT), while Brent oil rose 0.37% to $56.44.

Oil prices pushed higher earlier on Wednesday on the back of reports that Saudi Arabia has told OPEC officials that it wants to extend the cartel’s agreement to cut crude-oil production for another six months when the group meets in May.

Also supporting prices, the American Petroleum Institute reported late Tuesday a 1.3 million barrel decline in weekly stockpiles, compared to expectations for a build of 0.125 million.

The Energy Information Administration will report its own weekly numbers on Wednesday at 10:30AM ET (14:30GMT), amid expectations for a build of just 0.087 million barrels