Russia’s energy minister met with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil-producers to discuss steps to stabilise crude markets amid Opec’s drive to win cooperation from the biggest supplier outside the group in limiting output to prop up prices.
Ministers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE gathered in Riyadh for oil talks at the offices of the Gulf Cooperation Council secretariat. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak met with them later yesterday for a separate round of talks and was expected to speak afterward at a news conference. Oman was the only one of the GCC’s six members not attending.
“Oil markets are on the way to being re-balanced,” Saudi Arabia’s Energy and Industry Minister Khalid al-Falih said at the start of the GCC meeting. “Low oil prices are putting pressure on GCC countries’ development plans.” Russia was invited to attend the Gulf ministers’ talks, he said. “We are working with Russia and other oil producers to stabilise the market.”
Novak was set to meet representatives of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries today in Vienna for talks that could include production cuts, and officials from Russia and Saudi Arabia will hold bilateral discussions later this month. While Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to cooperate with Opec, he’s been vague about whether the country will trim output or just freeze production at September’s post-Soviet record.
Opec is seeking to attract other producers to join the plan it agreed to last month at a meeting in Algeria to put into effect the group’s first output cuts in eight years. Crude plunged to a 12-year low in January, squeezing the budgets of producers from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia. The price slide led Opec to abandon its two-year-old Saudi-led policy of allowing members to pump as much as they could in an effort to protect market share.
“We hope that they can reach an overall agreement on which Russia and other non-Opec producers will join and cooperate with Opec members,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told reporters yesterday in Tehran.
Iraq asked Opec for an exemption from participation in any cuts, Oil Minister Jabber al-Luaibi said yesterday at a news conference in Baghdad. He cited Iraq’s war against Islamic militants as the reason the country should be grouped with Iran and Nigeria as members not required to contribute to the collective cuts Opec agreed on last month in Algeria.

Russia: Output in any deal would depend on Opec accord, talks
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said yesterday that Russia’s production level in any accord to shore up prices would depend on the agreement Opec members struck between themselves beforehand, and on Moscow’s discussions with the exporter group.
“I would like to stress once again that we are not ready to give figures because consultations are continuing and the levels would be dependent on the final agreement of Opec and the result of our Opec negotiations,” he told reporters in Riyadh after talks with his Saudi Arabian and Qatari counterparts.
When asked whether Russia would freeze at current levels or cut below them, Novak replied: “We are looking at a number of options.
I don’t want to give the final decision yet but we are considering a few options at the moment.”