The national government set the local crude oil reference price at u$s45 per barrel, in a bid to protect the country’s hard-hit sector from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and low global prices

International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol said that recently announced oil output cuts by major Gulf Arab producers would likely not be enough to balance global markets as coronavirus lockdowns hollow out demand

OPEC+ meets next in early June to decide on its output policy. Under the deal, the exporting group is set to scale back the cuts to 7.7 million barrels per day from July until December

The Saudi Arabia energy ministry has directed Aramco to reduce its crude oil production for June by an extra voluntary amount of 1 million barrels per day, on top of the reduction already committed under the OPEC+ deal

Russia’s oil output in the first five days of May fell to 8.75 million barrels per day, close to its production target of 8.5 million daily barrels for May and June under a global deal to cut crude supplies

The Gov’t reaffirmed the need to set a reference price for the local oil barrel in order to facilitate investments in the sector once the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end

The bank raised its second-quarter 2020 Brent price forecast to $25 per barrel from $20 previously, while also slightly raising its full-year forecast for Brent to $35.8 per barrel from $35.2

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro appointed his economy vice president as interim oil minister and also replaced the head of the state oil company PDVSA

The drop in oil demand by refiners at local level and the exports limited to a minimum at global level due to the coronavirus pandemic, pushed storage capacity to the limit in the producing provinces

Global oil producers would welcome a demand recovery in China, the world’s top crude oil buyer, but not it may not be enough to alleviate a massive global supply glut