New York, 28 March - Neftegaz.RU. OPEC and Russia are working on a long-term deal to cut oil supply that would last 10 to 20 years, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is visiting the U.S. this month.
«We are working to shift from a year-to-year agreement to a 10-20 year agreement,» the crown prince told Reuters in an interview in New York. «We have agreement on the big picture, but not yet on the detail,» he said.
The idea to extend the current oil supply cooperation between OPEC and the Russia-led non-OPEC producers into a kind of permanent framework of cooperation emerged in February 2018, after UAE’s Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said that OPEC and Russia aimed to have a plan for long-term cooperation drafted by the end of 2018 to create a «supergroup» of oil producers.
The energy minister of OPEC’s de facto leader and largest producer Saudi Arabia Al-Falih, as well as Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak, has hinted several times that the cooperation could continue in some form - although not necessarily in oil market management - even after the end of 2018, when the current pact to curtail oil production expires.
Al-Falih expected last week that oil producers would extend output curbs into 2019. In February Novak said that Russia wanted to build a long-term relationship with Saudi Arabia and the broad OPEC alliance once their agreement expires.
