OEPC: Russia and Saudi Arabia agrees to end oil spat

Russia has unveiled on 9 April its plans to cut the country’s oil output by more than a fifth and called on other producers like the US to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The OPEC+ group pointed out that a final agreement is dependent on Mexico signing up to the pact. Discussions among global energy ministers will resume on Friday 10 April. 

Global oil demand is expected to fall by 17 million barrels a day as lockdowns put economies on hold.

Officials from the OPEC and Russia have said the scale of the crisis required the involvement of all producers.

“We are expecting other producers outside the OPEC+ club to join the measures, which might happen tomorrow during G20,” the head of Russia’s wealth fund and one of Moscow’s top oil negotiators, Kirill Dmitriev, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the US, struggled to find a way to curtail its own oil production and secure the desperately needed cooperation of those other key oil producer countries. 

Donald Trump said he had called Vladimir Putin and Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to encourage them to find a solution to the crisis threatening the oil industry. 

Trump’s intervention came as BP warned it will be forced to slash spending by at least $3bn in the face of what has been called the most “brutal environment for oil and gas businesses in decades”.