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Saudi-Russian Agreement to Achieve Oil Market Stability | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Joint statement by Saudi Energy Minister and his Russian counterpart (SPA)


Moscow – A Saudi-Russian agreement to cooperate in the oil market was quickly translated in the revival of oil prices on Monday.

The world’s biggest oil producers have agreed to work together to stabilize the declining oil prices on the sidelines of the G20 Nations Summit held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou on September 4-5.

During a joint news conference held on Monday, Saudi Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid Al-Falih and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced the two country’s willingness to cooperate in order to stabilize oil prices.

The ministers stressed the importance of maintaining ongoing dialogue about the current developments in oil and gas markets and indicated their mutual desire to further expand their bilateral cooperation in energy.

Saudi Arabia and Russia currently produce more than 21 percent of oil that is required to fuel global economic growth, improve standards of living and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The energy ministers said that the current challenges in the supply of the global oil market are represented in major contraction of capital investments in oil extraction on a global scale, particularly in exploration, as well as mass deferrals of investment projects, which made the market, as a whole, more volatile and therefore unsustainable to both producers and consumers in the long term.

They stressed the need to alleviate excessive volatility that is harmful to global economic stability and growth.
In this regard, the Saudi and Russian ministers noted that constructive dialogue and close cooperation among major oil producing countries was crucial to oil market stability in order to ensure sustainable levels of investment for the long term.

The officials agreed to act jointly by establishing a joint monitoring task force to continuously review the oil market fundamentals and recommend measures and joint actions aimed at securing oil market stability and predictability.

They also said that cooperation would include deployment of new technologies, exchange of information and expertise to raise the level of technology applications in production, refining, storage, transport and distribution, as well as equipment production, support services such as engineering, manufacturing and research activities, along with collaboration in power generation and renewable energy.