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Trump Says Global Oil Cut Will Be About 20 Million Barrels

Trump Says Global Oil Cut Will Be About 20 Million Barrels

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said oil-producing countries agreed to cut output by about 20 million barrels per day, portraying the figure as double the publicly reported reduction in a pair of tweets.

Trump thanked Russia and Saudi Arabia for resolving a month-long price war that has slashed gasoline prices at the pump for U.S. consumers but hurt the American shale drilling industry.

Crude oil futures extended gains after Trump’s tweet, trading up 5.2% at 10:05 a.m. in New York.

The OPEC+ alliance has publicly agreed to cut 9.7 million barrels a day -- just below an initial proposal of 10 million. Production declines due to the effects of low prices in the U.S., Brazil and Canada will also be counted toward the deal, deepening the global supply reduction by 3.7 million barrels a day. Other G-20 states were expected to contribute 1.3 million.

The U.S. president may have been referring to estimates of total worldwide oil production decline. Those figures, though, include some 2.7 million barrels a day of additional crude that some countries had planned to pump this month before the OPEC+ deal. The total would also include an estimated decline of 2.8 million barrels a day in Iran, Venezuela and Libya.

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