OPEC+ oil production cuts can "absolutely" continue past the first quarter if needed, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg News on Monday.

Last week, OPEC+ oil producers agreed to voluntary output cuts totalling about 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first quarter of 2024 led by Saudi Arabia rolling over its current voluntary cut.

"We wanted to make sure we have a good deal, a bigger deal than the market may have anticipated," Prince Abdulaziz said.

Oil prices fell following the agreement as most analysts said the market was disappointed by protracted talks and fears the cuts could end after March.

Prince Abdulaziz said OPEC+ had ordered an analysis of possible inventories builds ahead of the meeting with some forecasts predicting an increase in stocks of as much as 1.7 million barrels per day.

He said cuts agreed last week should be enough to offset the increase in stocks.

He also said he would prefer Russia to cut production rather than exports.

But he added that he and other OPEC+ ministers realised cutting production for Russia in winter month was difficult and hence OPEC+ had asked five tanker tracking companies to work with Russia on a monthly basis to monitor its shipments.

"Russia is going to hold itself accountable," he said adding it would be difficult to convince other producers to cut if they didn't know how much Russia was cutting.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in London and Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Jan Harvey and Nick Zieminski)