The importance of OPEC’s cooperation with Russia and other partners and the fruitful relationship with Moscow is comparable to the work of the legendary Russian pianist and composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on his Symphony Number 6, the oil cartel said in a statement published on its website, according to RIA Novosti.
“Tchaikovsky, when speaking about his famous Symphony Number 6, or ‘Passionate Symphony’, captured perfectly the deep satisfaction that comes from giving a project your all, and then being inspired to continually accomplish greater and greater things,” OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said at the Austrian-Russian Friendship Society (ORFG) meeting in Vienna on Tuesday.
Barkindo quoted the composer as saying that he “put the whole soul into this work.”
The secretary general also emphasized that in a new era in international energy cooperation based on mutual respect, joint efforts to find solutions and transparency has come.
The OPEC+ production reduction pact aimed at stabilizing crude prices is valid until the end of March 2020. In total, the countries participating in the agreement (24 crude exporters, including Russia) should reduce production by 1.2 million barrels per day to the level of October 2018. Under the deal, OPEC and non-OPEC nations are obliged to cut their oil output by 812,000 and 383,000 barrels per day, respectively.
Under the deal, Russia and Saudi Arabia, being the biggest oil producers, have the largest quotas for reducing production. They are obliged to cut their oil output by 228,000 and 322,000 barrels per day, respectively. OPEC+ nations will consider the issue of production levels after March 2020 at a meeting on December 5-6, 2019.
Meanwhile, three sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Russia is unlikely to agree to deepen cuts in oil output at a meeting with fellow exporters next month, but could commit to extend existing curbs to support Saudi Arabia.