EMEA News
Russia Agrees Oil Price Stabilisation Initiatives With Venezuela, Willing to Further Talks with OPEC
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro last week "worked out a number of initiatives aimed at stabilizing the oil market" during a meeting in China, RT reports.
The measures, the specifics of which are to be announced at a later date, were said to be aimed at pushing prices up to $70 per barrel in the coming months, and then held in a range of $70 to $80 per barrel thereafter.
“This price range would guarantee the safety of investments to the energy industry in the coming years as well lead to economic stability,” said Maduro.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, also says the country's Minister of Energy, Alexander Novak, would be willing to continue talks with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) over oil price stabilisation if the invite was extended, Platts reports.
"Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak [earlier] held consultations and took part in OPEC oil ministers' meetings,” said Dvorkovich.
“If there is an invitation for the next meeting, he will naturally go and take part in those consultations."
Production Cuts
Russia is reported to have ramped up talks with OPEC and other oil-producing countries since the end of 2014 following a huge slide in the price of oil.
Despite a slow recovery over the first half of 2015, producers have focused more on defending market share rather than controlling prices by cutting back supply, and by the end of August crude had again crashed to multi-year lows sending bunker prices in some ports under $200 per metric tonne for the first time in over a decade.
Russia says it now may consider a “slight cut” in its production if oil prices continue on with a persistent downward trend.
"If oil prices are at the low level for long, a certain decrease in the production is possible, as it happened previously. Nonetheless, I don't expect major cuts," explained Dvorkovich.
"Under the current oil prices, investments into hard-to-access fields and some new projects are reducing. This will inevitably result in at least no increase in production.”
Dvorkovich further noted that, due production technology differences, the country cannot reduce its output as most OPEC countries can.
From January through to the end of June of this year, Russia’s crude is reported to have risen to 10.692 million barrels per day (bpd), a 1.4 percent increase year on year.
Last week, OPEC was reported to have indicated that it too may be ready to talk to other producers over cutting oil production levels.
