Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Eng. Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih and OPEC member states' counterparts from Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Algeria, Nigeria, Venezuela, Libya, in addition to Non-OPEC representatives of Russia, South Sudan, Azerbaijan and Brunei met here today. In his inaugural speech, Al-Falih stressed that the common objective of the OPEC+ Group, is to maintain the stability of world oil markets, benefiting both consumers and producers, in addition to the significant progress achieved by the Group, despite serious challenges it faced. He called on the world to condemn the destructive act that took place last week in the Kingdom, even though they do not affect the oil supply, as these sabotage acts affect the energy supply to the world and expose the world economy to additional risks. The Joint Ministerial Committee to monitor the cut-off agreement after the end of its meeting, confirmed its commitment to achieving market balance and stabilizing it on a sustainable basis. Its statement expressed satisfaction with the important role played by the "Declaration of Cooperation" in the recovery of the oil market witnessed in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the last quarter of 2018 and supported by the high level of commitment to voluntary production adjustments by the participating countries. The rate of compliance in April has risen to 168%, while the average rate of compliance was 120% since January 2019. Monitoring the production reduction agreement of the Technical Committee and the OPEC General Secretariat, the committee has continued to follow up and analyze the developments in the oil market and in particular, follow up the estimates of the oil reserves in the coming weeks to enable its next meeting to submit recommendations to the OPEC and Non-OPEC producer countries ministerial level conference scheduled for July 2019, on appropriate actions to be taken by participating countries, during the second half of 2019. On the other hand, the Joint Ministerial Committee expressed great appreciation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the excellent logistical arrangements and good hospitality accorded to participation delegations.
