EMEA News
Russia Signals Continued Cooperation with OPEC on Oil Prices
It says something of a crude market that routinely sees fiery rhetoric from the Middle East and the U.S. that Russia can appear to be comparatively even-minded, but that was the case on Thursday when both its head of Rosneft and its energy minister offered diplomatic observations about the state of the industry moving forward.
Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft, told a forum in Verona, Italy that he was comfortable with the current oil price and no one wants a spike because it would harm global economic growth.
He also paid lip service to those who worry about the U.S.'s hawkish stance by noting that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may not have enough free oil production capacity to compensate for lower supplies from producers such as Iran and Venezuela affected by U.S. sanctions.
Sechin also voiced the familiar argument that the global oil sector needs a significant inflow of investments in the long term to compensate for aging oil-producing assets.
Meanwhile, Alexander Novak, energy minister for the former Soviet Union, told media on Thursday that the Arctic LNG 2 project of Russia's biggest non-state gas producer, Novatek, is receiving investor interest from groups apart from Saudi Aramco.
Novatek plans three liquefaction trains for this project, which will produce 19.8 million tonnes per year of LNG from gas produced at the Utrenneye gas and condensate field.
Novak added that his country is ready to continue cooperation with OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers, and that the crude market is currently in balance despite volatile inventories.
Russia is proving to be a master at media relations, to the point where it can express its production might and simultaneously come off as responsible global citizens, for example: earlier this month, Novak voiced the possibility of further oil output regulation at the same time president Vladimir Putin was boasting that his country could add another 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) on top of a record-high output of 11.36 million bpd.
