Recent US oil fall merely market-driven: Kremlin

By Sibel Morrow

ANKARA (AA) - The recent decline in U.S. oil production due to low prices should not be seen as an attempt to balance the markets, Russian news agency TASS reported Russia's Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Wednesday.

Peskov's remarks came in response to the question on whether Russia would be happy with the normal decline in U.S. oil supply, which is unavoidable in the face of declining demand and low prices.

He said the natural reduction in the U.S. oil output could not be counted as cuts aimed at stabilizing the markets. "These are absolutely different reductions [...] and [comparing them] means comparing apples and oranges."

He urged waiting for the OPEC+ teleconference scheduled for April 9, when experts would exchange views to clarify the market dynamics.

Due to the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, global economic growth and oil demand have remained very low, creating an oil supply glut and pushing crude prices to their lowest levels since 2002.

After failing to make deeper and longer cuts on March 6, Saudi Arabia-led OPEC and Russia-spearheaded non-OPEC oil-producing countries will hold a teleconference on Thursday in the hope of curbing their total production to trim some of the oversupply in the global oil market.