Saudi Arabia looks to make drastic oil production cuts in July as part of an OPEC+ agreement to bolster the price on the black gold.

Going from ten million barrels per day (bpd) in May to nine million bpd in July marks the biggest cut in production in many years.

OPEC+ is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, helmed by Russia.

All totaled, OPEC+ comprises 40% of the world’s oil production.

“This is a Saudi lollipop. We wanted to ice the cake. We always want to add suspense,” says Saudi oil minister Prince Abdulazi.

”We don’t want people to try to predict what we do. This market needs stabilization.”

OPEC+ also agrees to extend cuts of 3.66 million bpd so that it reaches into 2024 instead of coming to an end by the end of the year.

The cut amounts to 3.6% of global demand.

Moreover, OPEC+ agrees to reduce overall production targets by an additional 1.4 million bpd versus the current target to a combined 40.46 million bpd.

However, a lot of the cuts only work on paper as the group decides to lower the production targets for Russian, Nigeria and Angola.

OPEC consists of Algeria, Angola, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia is the only member nation with sufficient capacity and inventory to easily make upwards or downwards adjustments to production.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western nations have a accused OPEC of tampering with oil prices and undermining global economy by stoking oil prices.

In response, OPEC sources has claimed that the West’s money printing in the recent decade has propelled inflation and forced oil producing nations to act in order to maintain the value of their main export.