Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's largest crude oil producer in May, with Russia's oil output amounting to 10.298 million barrels a day against 9.880 million barrels extracted by Saudi Arabia, Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) data showed, according to Sputnik
Russia’s output in May decreased by 0.24 percent, while Saudi oil production dropped by 0.34 percent, compared to April, JODI noted Tuesday, specifying that Russia’s daily output in April amounted to 10.323 million barrels, whereas Saudi production totaled 9.946 million barrels.
According to the data, the export of the Saudi Arabia's oil decreased by 1.17 percent to 6.924 barrels per day, compared to the previous month. Meanwhile, JODI did not provide any data on the Russian oil export in May.
Moscow has been ahead of Riyadh in crude production since the beginning of the year.
In late 2016, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member states, including Saudi Arabia signed an agreement in Vienna on limiting oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day to 32.5 million barrels per day for the whole cartel and 11 non-OPEC countries decided to jointly cut oil output by 558,000 barrels per day with Russia cutting the output by 300,000 barrels per day. The measure came to boost oil prices and is expected to stay in effect until 2018.
