Russia produced more crude oil than Saudi Arabia in June, beating it to the second place of the largest oil producers in the world, behind the number-one producer, the United States, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed.
In June, Russia’s crude oil production was 8.788 million bpd, according to the data released by the JODI database, which collects self-reported figures from 114 countries.
To compare, production in Saudi Arabia in the same month was just below 7.5 million bpd. June was the month in which Saudi Arabia voluntarily slashed its oil production by an additional 1 million bpd for just one month, on top of the 2.5 million bpd it was supposed to cut as per the OPEC+ deal in force since May.
While Russia and Saudi Arabia are cutting production as part of the OPEC+ agreement, the United States remained the top crude oil producer in the world in June, despite the slump in crude oil production since May in response to the low oil prices. The JODI database showed that U.S. crude oil production averaged 10.879 million bpd in June, up from 10 million bpd in May, which saw the lowest U.S. monthly production since late 2017.
The U.S. became the world’s biggest crude oil producer, surpassing both Saudi Arabia and Russia, in 2018.
The oil price collapse earlier this year forced Saudi Arabia and Russia to forge a new OPEC+ pact and cut much more production than in their previous agreement, while U.S. producers curtailed nearly 2 million bpd of production in response to the low oil prices.
The latest EIA estimates point to U.S. crude oil production dropping by an average of 990,000 bpd this year, for an average of 11.26 million bpd. Despite the fact that the estimate is a far greater loss than the EIA had expected in the previous month’s forecast, the U.S. will continue to be the world’s top crude oil producer, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com