Russia: What is Putin going to do?

[dan_s]

‘Non-OPEC countries have made the decision to join OPEC in increasing compliance with the [original] deal to 100%, in an effort to add more barrels of oil on the market.’
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak

Wall Street Journal: Russia on Saturday threw its support behind Saudi Arabia’s plan to ramp up global oil production in the face of higher prices, after more than a year of holding back output in coordination with OPEC.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said his country backed a plan by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to raise crude production by a nominal one million barrels a day starting next month. Though, the actual increase by OPEC is expected to be around 600,000 barrels a day, according to people familiar with the matter, due to some producers being unable to increase output.

That’s far lower than the 1.5 million barrel a day increase Russia had been targeting ahead of a series of OPEC-led meetings in Vienna this week.
-------------------------
MY TAKE is that Russia may fill the gap between 600,000 and 1,000,000 BOPD increase. Since the global oil market is under-supplied by over a million barrels per day NOW and demand is going up during the summer months, we are heading to a VERY TIGHT global oil market by year-end. U.S. and OECD oil inventories will continue to fall as refineries have already ramped up to peak utilization. This is going to be an interesting year. - Dan