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WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. President Donald Trump has disputed reports that OPEC and its oil-producing allies, including Mexico and Russia, are cutting production by 10 million barrels a day, saying the figure is twenty million.

President Trump who participated in the negotiations which led to a pact being agreed by 23 energy ministers of oil-producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia on Sunday, is probably the first president to be actively working to cut production and increase prices.

Presidents in the past have agitated for production to be increased, to bring down the price of oil.

The current move is to underpin and lift the price of oil.

The president attributes his involvement in getting prices up as helping the energy industry.

Lower oil prices have put pressure on the sector, particularly when the price recently hit, albeit briefly, $20 a barrel.

Surprisingly while the U.S. oil industry will benefit from the joint action, so too will American adversaries such as Iran and Venezuela, as well as countries headed by personal allies of the president, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“Having been involved in the negotiations, to put it mildly, the number that OPEC+ is looking to cut is 20 Million Barrels a day, not the 10 Million that is generally being reported,” the president said in a tweet on Monday night.

“If anything near this happens, and the World gets back to business from the Covid 19 disaster, the Energy Industry will be strong again, far faster than currently anticipated.”

“Thank you to all of those who worked with me on getting this very big business back on track, in particular Russia and Saudi Arabia,” the president said.

It is unclear as to how the president arrived at the conclusion that 20 million barrels a day will be cut, against the reported number of 10 million barrels a day. In fact the ten million is rounded up from 9.7 million, which is the number detailed in the official statement issued by the OPEC+ meeting on Sunday, which was co-chaired by Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, and Alexander Novak, Russia’sMinister of Energy.

The statement said:

(The) OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting, and all Participating Countries agreed to:

Adjust downwards their overall crude oil production by 9.7 mb/d, starting on 1 May 2020, for an initial period of two months that concludes on 30 June 2020. For the subsequent period of 6 months, from 1 July 2020 to 31 December 2020, the total adjustment agreed will be 7.7 mb/d. It will be followed by a 5.8 mb/d adjustment for a period of 16 months, from 1 January 2021 to 30 April 2022. The baseline for the calculation of the adjustments is the oil production of October 2018, except for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and The Russian Federation, both with the same baseline level of 11.0 mb/d. The agreement will be valid until 30 April 2022, however, the extension of this agreement will be reviewed during December 2021.

Open member countries comprise Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Congo.