Energy ministry of QATAR confirmed today that follow up OPEC meeting to last month’s, where Russia, Qatar, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia met and agreed to production freeze at January levels will be happening on April 17th.

While market participants have remained skeptical over the success of freeze since production is already at high as well as global inventory, International Energy Agency (IEA) has recognized the meeting as successful one by saying it has been one of the driver behind recent rise in oil price. Global benchmark Brent is up more than 44% from its bottom in February. In its latest report IEA has also suggested that oil price may have bottomed for now. However, Brent and WTI face crucial test from here, whether they succeed in breaking above key resistance area or succumb to selling pressure once more.

As of now almost 15 OPEC and non-OPEC countries have either committed or shown interest to commit to production freeze and this is vital since these 15 controls almost 65% of global crude oil supply. Recently Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Iraq has shown interest to the commitment. Only defiant remain Iran, which this year got its sanctions removed, which has curbed its production to low levels. Latest Venezuela led consortium recognizes that Iran is right to boost production post sanction removal to at least pre-sanction levels.

Russia said to believe that current freeze would work even if Iran stays out.

Brent is currently trading at $39.3/barrel, up 1.1% today.