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Russia: No immediate plans to discuss oil cuts with Saudi Arabia 

March 17, 2020 at 9:22 am

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov in Sochi, Russia on 14 February 2019 [Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency]

Russia does not have any immediate plans for any contacts with the leadership of Saudi Arabia over the global oil strategy, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, announced yesterday.

Peskov told reporters in the Russian capital Moscow that the recent decline in oil prices had not come as a “surprise” to his government.

“There were expectations and forecasts that there would be a period of falling oil and energy prices,” he said.

Oil prices have fallen sharply since Russia and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) failed to agree on production cuts in early March.

Saudi-led OPEC and Russia-led non-OPEC oil producing countries – a grouping known as OPEC+ that pumps over 40 per cent of the world’s oil – had agreed last December to lower their collective output level by 1.2 million barrels per day, and later extended it until the end of March 2020 to support crude prices.

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