Saudi Arabia will not attend meeting with Russia and other non-OPEC countries on Monday
Saudi Arabia will not take part in a meeting with non-OPEC countries which will be held on Monday, The Financial Times (FT) reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Saudi Arabia, according to the newspaper’s source, believes that there is "no point in being present there [at the meeting] when members of the organization had not reached an agreement with each other yet" and generally even questions the need for such a meeting.
"As OPEC has not reached an agreement yet, there is no need to hold a meeting with non-OPEC countries. If these problems still exist, what is the point of meeting?" FT’s source noted.
The meeting is scheduled for November 28 and will take place in Vienna. Representatives of Russia will be among the meeting’s participants.
The meeting of non-OPEC countries will be held two days before the talks of OPEC itself. On November 30 in Vienna, the countries of the organization will have to finalize the terms of the reduction in oil production, previously adopted in Algeria (according to which production in the organization should be reduced to 32.5-33 million barrels per day).
A day earlier, Bloomberg pointed out that some of the OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, expect a cut in production from Russia. The head of the Russian Ministry of Energy, Alexander Novak, told reporters on November 24 that the freezing of oil production in Russia would in fact be tantamount to a reduction of 200-300 thousand barrels per day. Novak assured that Russia received no ultimatums from Saudi Arabia with a requirement to cut down oil production.