Russia Has Become the World's Largest Producer of Crude Oil

According to Bloomberg News on February 20th, Dubai reported that Russia had become the world's largest producer of crude oil in December of last year, which had surpassed Saudi Arabia. At that time, the two countries have begun to limit production to meet formal effectiveness of global production restriction agreement in 2017.
    
According to the data released by Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) whose headquarter is in Riyadh on Monday, Russia's crude oil production was 10.49 million barrels per day, which was reduced by 290 thousand barrels per day in December last year; and Saudi Arabia's crude oil production was 10.72 million barrels per day in November and was reduced to 10.46 million barrels per day in December.
    
This is the first time that Russia's oil production surpassed Saudi Arabia since March 2016. According to JODI data, the United States has became the third largest manufacturer, its oil production is 8.9 million barrels per day in November last year and was reduced to 8.8 million barrels per day in December.
    
Both Russia and Saudi Arabia have reduced oil production based on the framework of stable oil market agreement reached by the end of 2016. After several months of disagreement, representatives of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC) reached a production reduction agreement and agreed to reduce 1.2 million barrels of the daily output on November 30 last year. The move is aimed at boosting oil prices and reaffirming OPEC's influence as the crude oil market is gradually dominated by the US, Russia and other countries, and Saudi Arabia is taking great responsibility for the reduction plan. In addition, for those non OPEC members, Russia also promised to reduce 600 thousand barrels per day.
    
According to the survey this month, the implementation rate of OPEC for production reduction has reached as high as 90%. International oil prices have increased 20%, since the end of November last year.