The Opec+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), which studies compliance with the coalition's output restraint deal, has pushed back its next monthly meeting by a day to 19 August, according to two Opec+ delegates.
One delegate said that the JMMC meeting was postponed at the request of Russia, the informal leader of non-Opec participants in the 23-nation agreement to cut production by 7.7mn b/d between August and December, largely from an October 2018 baseline.
Delegates said it has not yet been decided if the August meeting of the Opec+ Joint Technical Committee (JTC), which examines market conditions to inform the group's strategy, will also be pushed back. The JTC was initially set to assemble virtually on 17 August. The JTC typically meets a day before the JMMC.
In its August meeting, the JMMC will investigate the Opec+ group's conformity for July — the last month of the first phase of the Opec+ agreement, which required participants to lower output by a deeper 9.6mn b/d. JMMC meetings have now become monthly fixtures, amid a Saudi-led crackdown on over-producers. Countries whose production exceeded their quota have to compensate with cuts in subsequent months.
The JMMC estimated the Opec+ group collectively reached 107pc conformity in June, with non-Opec members meeting 99pc of their pledge. Opec countries' compliance averaged 112pc — a figure driven by Saudi, UAE and Kuwaiti efforts to voluntarily deepen their output reductions by a further 1.2mn b/d that month.
