By Abdullah Othman

KUWAIT CITY, July 29: The oil market got a boost of 2 percent on Tuesday after Saudi’s decision to cut down its oil exports by early August.

Oil analyst Muhammad Al-Shatti at the fourth sitting of the ministerial committee for monitoring oil prices in Saint Petersburg, Russia said the recent development indicates a positive atmosphere and optimism, particularly with the unprecedented pledges by members to the agreement on cutting production since the first half of 2017, leading to a reduction in the strategic stocks of the top oil consuming countries by 90 million barrels as of June 2017.

Al-Shatti looks forward to the strategic stock dropping further in the coming months to ensure an increase in demand of 2 million barrels daily, saying measures have been adopted to extend enforcement of the low production rate beyond March 2018.

For his part, Oil analyst Dr Abdulsami Behbehani said the act of some member countries declining to conform to the decision of reducing the production has led to excess in supply. He cited Iraq and UAE as the two main countries not sticking to the decision, adding Iraq had pledged to reduce production by 28 percent and UAE 45 percent.

Member of Kuwait Economic Forum and specialist Hani Bakr stated the second half of 2017 will be witness to a slight increase in demand that will reflect on the prices simultaneously. He added the oil market has gone through a phase of hesitation due to different reasons; above all, reports about the growing number of shale oil rigs.