Door for talks on oil production freeze remains open - Russian energy minister

DOHA, April 17. /TASS/. Russia is ready to take part in a regular meeting to discuss oil production freeze, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. "Countries not making part of OPEC, in particular, Russia, will be ready to consider the possibility of participation in a regular meeting [on oil production freeze] if such agreements are reached," Novak said. "We believe that the door is not closed and there will be opportunities to additionally hold relevant consultations," he said. Novak said the sides agreed that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will hold additional consultations with countries that did not take part in today’s talks. This will be done prior to the OPEC summit in June. Oil producer states, which are members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as those states, which are not members of the organization, met on Sunday, April 17 in Doha, Qatar, to discuss stabilization of oil prices. The countries failed to reach an agreement. Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natig Aliyev told TASS earlier that a draft of the oil producer countries’ agreement envisions a freeze of production until October at the level of January 2016. Delegations from 18 countries came to the capital of Qatar for the meeting. The 19th participant of the talks, Iran, refused to discuss oil production freeze before the meeting, explaining it by recently lifted sanctions. That is why representatives of the Islamic Republic did not go to Doha. As a result, the discussion, which should have started at 10:00 a.m. (the time coincides with the Moscow Time) and lasted 1.5 hours, began after 15:00 as Saudi Arabia demanded that changes be introduced in the draft deal. According to Reuters sources, the talk was about the necessity to sign the document by all countries members of OPEC. Read more