President Vladimir Putin has indicated that Russia could be onboard with any effort to postpone the next taper of Opec+ production cuts. Under the current agreement, the cuts are scheduled to taper into their third and final phase from 1 January, adding 1.9mn b/d to the market.

But with inventories slow to drain and exempt-Libya bringing substantial additional volumes to the market, concern is rising that the market will struggle to absorb the additional barrels (MEES, 16 October). (CONTINUED - 224 WORDS)