RUSSIA, March 21 - Today the global oil market is under unprecedented negative pressure from unnatural, man-made factors that create great volatility and uncertainty. These factors include the Western countries’ short-sighted energy agenda aimed at withdrawing investment from traditional energy sectors, imposing illegal restrictions on the free movement of energy goods, and introducing an embargo on the supply of oil and petroleum products.

Ongoing attempts to set a price cap are equally dangerous.

The risk of replicating these attempts will lead to the destruction of the investment climate in cyclical industries and hit consumers.

The above-mentioned politically biased, low-quality decisions create significant risks for the energy security of the whole world.

OPEC+ is an important and responsible tool for balancing the market, consistently making decisions based on fundamental indicators, not political messages.

At the same time, Russia maintains its position on the complete rejection of illegal restrictive measures and has voluntarily cut crude oil production by 500,000 barrels per day since March.

Today, Russia is close to achieving the target level of the reduction: it will be reached in the next few days.

In accordance with the current market situation, the decision to voluntarily reduce production by 500,000 barrels per day will remain in force until the end of June 2023.