Russia, Saudi to cooperate in oil market

Russia and Saudi Arabia are working towards an agreement under which they will cooperate in the oil market.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak made the announcement during a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Strasbourg, France, which witnessed the participation of Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih and Robert Dudley, group Chief Executive of BP.

Novak pointed out that there is an agreement on the coordination of joint action between the two countries in order to implement investments worth tens of billions of dollars, Russian news agency Sputnik reported.

“The accord,” Novak explained, “covers the fields of gas and petroleum chemicals [and] will be implemented soon”. He continued: “We have several projects. Yesterday, we discussed a road map on mutual cooperation and the implementation of projects between our countries. The map contains 35 items worth tens of billions of dollars that could be realised as investments in the near future.”

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Saudi Energy Minister Al-Falih also discussed the cooperation, saying that “there is full consensus on a new charter for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) related to long-term cooperation”.

Al-Falih added that “the demand for oil has maintained a decent pace lately, and we hope that such pace continues to be steady in the future”.

He also indicated that OPEC members have mostly agreed to extend a 1.2 million barrel per day (bpd) oil production cut after June. However, there is still need to hold talks with non-OPEC allies on the deal, he added. He also stressed that “Saudi Arabia will continue to reduce oil production in July”.

The two ministers yesterday discussed postponing the next OPEC meeting to 4 July, instead of 25 June, according to Novak. Although Russia is not a member of OPEC, it has been involved in two production cuts over the past three years.

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