Gulf-Russian Meeting on Oil: The Difficult Phase has Ended

Riyadh- Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) energy ministers and their Russian counterpart asserted during a meeting in Riyadh yesterday that oil markets are on the way to being re-balanced, but in a slow pace.

Saudi Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Faleh said the current decline of oil prices is about to end.

Following a meeting of GCC energy ministers with their Russian counterpart, Al-Faleh said the oil markets have recently begun moving towards balance.

“We have started within OPEC’s member countries and in cooperation with non-OPEC’s member countries, intensive consultations to take appropriate procedures to restore balance faster and to accelerate the process of recovery in the market, taking into account the growing of oil stocks through the last period,” the Saudi minister said.

Faleh praised the important meeting of the International Energy Forum held in Algeria last month and during which a decision was taken to lower OPEC production ceiling to a level ranging between 32.5 and 33 million barrels per day.

Al-Faleh added: “We are still suffering from the fluctuations of the oil market and its resulting pressure on the budgets of all the GCC countries and the stability of the spending on ambitious development plans in our countries. We are worried that the sharp decline in oil prices has led to reduce oil investments in many countries that may lead the world to opposite crises representing in the lack of supply in the future and may be its subsequent negative effects on the global economy.”

The OPEC countries are set to finalize an agreement on oil output freeze at an OPEC summit in Vienna on November 30.

Al Faleh called on all partners from outside OPEC to participate in the decisions of the November meeting.

From his part, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday after a meeting with his GCC counterparts that participants discussed the way OPEC members and Russia would freeze the levels of oil production, and the tools needed to implement such a strategy.

Novak asserted that Russian-Saudi relations have reached an “unprecedented level.”

Gulf-Russian Meeting on Oil: The Difficult Phase has Ended