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CALGARY – The agreement between OPEC and its allies to curb oil production appears to be finally draining the great crude glut that has been sloshing around in storage tanks around the world and weighing on prices.

Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies such as Russia and Mexico met in Vienna on Friday and noted with some satisfaction that their agreement of curbing oil production by 1.8 million barrels per day till March 2018 is working – oil is being withdrawn from storage and global markets are moving towards equilibrium.

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“The process is working fine so far,” Kuwait’s Oil Minister Issam Almarzooq told Bloomberg after Friday’s meeting. “We hope that we can consume the remaining overhead in this period,” he said, adding that it’s not possible to say whether the cuts will need to be extended until closer to expiry, he said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak also gave some indication of when the deal with OPEC countries such as Saudi Arabia might end. “A gradual, slow exit strategy” could begin between the second and fourth quarters of 2018 when “demand can absorb additional supply,” he said.