VIENNA—Russia on Saturday threw its support behind Saudi Arabia’s plan to ramp up global oil production in the face of higher prices, after more than a year of holding back output in coordination with OPEC.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said his country backed a plan by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to raise crude production by a nominal one million barrels a day starting next month. Though, the actual increase is expected to be around 600,000 barrels a day, according to people familiar with the matter, due to some producers being unable to increase output.
That is far lower than the 1.5 million barrel a day increase Russia had been targeting ahead of a series of OPEC-led meetings in Vienna this week.
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OPEC and 10 producers outside the oil-cartel—including Russia—have been holding back oil output by around 1.8 million barrels a day since the start of last year in an effort to rein in a supply glut that had weighed on prices since late 2014. But as a result deeper cuts from countries like Saudi Arabia—the de facto head of OPEC—and production outages in other OPEC members, compliance with the deal has exceeded the planned quotas, rising to around 150%.
OPEC agreed Friday to bring that down to 100%, and Russia endorsed that Saturday. “Non-OPEC countries have made the decision to join OPEC in reducing (compliance) with the deal” to 100%, in an effort to add more barrels of oil on the market, Mr. Novak said following a meeting here with OPEC and other participating producers.
Mr. Novak said that rising oil prices—Brent crude breached the $80 a barrel threshold last month for the first time in over three years—reflect a clearing of a global inventory overhang and the rebalancing of the oil market.
Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Khalid al-Falih said Saturday the release of additional barrels on the market would be gradual, but that his country would begin to sell more oil at the start of July.
The decision comes amid concerns that quickly rising prices could curb consumer demand, as well as pressure from the U.S. and other big consuming nations for OPEC to open the taps.
President Donald Trump on Friday again blamed OPEC for higher prices. He tweeted that he hoped the cartel would “increase output substantially. Need to keep prices down!”
On Saturday, both Saudi Arabia and Russia said pressure from Mr. Trump hadn’t influenced their decision to raise output. “ Twitter is not one of the instruments we base our decisions on,” Mr. Novak said.
Oil prices have climbed by more than 40% since the deal took effect last year, aided by robust demand and geopolitical risk to supply.
Still, Brent—the global benchmark—climbed more 3% on Friday after OPEC announced the tentative agreement to raise production by less than many investors had feared. Prices had fallen in recent weeks on expectations OPEC and Russia could again flood the market with crude.
Saturday’s gathering caps a week of often contentious meetings between OPEC and its partner producers. Several times during the week, Iran threatened to pull out of any deal to increase output, while accusing Saudi Arabia—its main rival in the Middle East—of doing the U.S.’s bidding. Iran ultimately agreed after OPEC said it wouldn’t provide any concrete numbers to its deal, people familiar with the matter said.
Write to Christopher Alessi at christopher.alessi@wsj.com and Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com