RIYADH: Iraq does not expect the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, to make further cuts to oil output at its next meeting in June, its oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said. “At the next meeting, which will be held on the 3rd and 4th (of June), there will be no additional reduction, and as for Iraq, we cannot reduce further,” Abdel-Ghani said in an interview, his first to foreign media since taking office last year. In a following statement, he said Iraq is committed to voluntary oil production cuts that started in May and will last until the end of 2023. However, he noted that Iraq was not asked to make additional such cuts before a June 4 OPEC+ meeting. OPEC+ agreed to cut production in late 2022 to support the market as the economic outlook worsened, hitting prices. Then in a surprise move in early April, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members announced further oil output cuts of around 1.2 million barrels per day. The announcement helped push oil prices sharply higher, but those gains have since been erased as fears of a global economic slowdown took hold. OPEC+ members are set to meet in Vienna on June 4 to decide on their next course of action. “The second cut was voluntary, and it has helped us a lot in the stability of the market and boosting prices,” Abdel-Ghani said. G7 and EU to ban restart of Russian gas pipelines The G7 countries and the EU will ban Russian gas imports on routes where Moscow has cut supplies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing officials involved in the negotiations. The decision, to be finalized by G7 leaders at a summit in Hiroshima starting on Friday, will prevent the resumption of Russian pipeline gas exports on routes to countries such as Poland and Germany, where Moscow cut off supplies last year, the newspaper said. US oil and gas rig count falls to lowest since June 2022 US oil and natural gas rig count fell last week to its lowest in nearly a year, as gas rigs slumped by the most in a week since February 2016, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co. said in its closely followed report on May 12. The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, fell by 17 to 731 in the week to May 12, the lowest since June 2022. The weekly drop was the biggest since June 2020. Baker Hughes said that puts the total rig count up only 17, or 2 percent, over this time last year. US oil rigs fell by two to 586 last week, their lowest since June 2022, while gas rigs plunged by 16 to 141, their lowest in April last year. Despite some plans to lower rig counts, US crude production was still on track to rise from 11.9 million barrels per day in 2022 to a new record high of 12.5 million bpd in 2023 and 12.7 million bpd in 2024, according to projections from the US Energy Information Administration in May. US gas production, meanwhile, was on track to rise from a record 98.13 billion cubic feet per day in 2022 to 101.09 bcfd in 2023 and 101.24 bcfd in 2024, according to EIA’s projection. (With input from Reuters)