OPEC, rivals agree on plan to stabilize oil market

Agence France-Presse, Moscow

OPEC and rival crude producers will agree on measures to stabilize the global oil market in the coming days, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko said on Tuesday cited by Interfax.

"Supplementary measures will be decided" following consultations between Moscow and members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as other non-OPEC producers, Khristenko said.

The Russian deputy premier, who holds the energy brief, said that the slump in oil prices was a real concern for Russia, which would face particular difficulties in the first half of next year.

"The situation on the oil market is a continuing worry for the Russian government," he said.

Russia offered Monday to create a parallel structure to OPEC with other non-cartel oil producers to help stabilize prices, days after its shrugged off an OPEC ultimatum to slash its exports, according to Russian media reports.

The proposed structure, which would be informal, would mostly serve as a means to exchange information between participants.

Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov made the proposal to his Mexican counterpart Ernest Martens, who was visiting Moscow Monday to discuss the oil market situation, state news agency RIA Novosti said.

RIA Novosti cited Martens, who will meet Norway's energy minister in Oslo Tuesday, as expressing "great interest" in Moscow's idea.

OPEC oil ministers last week agreed to cut their production by 1.5 million barrels per day from Jan.1 on condition that major non-OPEC producers like Russia, Norway and Mexico cut theirs by half a million barrels a day.

Mexico offered to cut oil exports by 100,000 barrels a day from Jan.1 if OPEC confirmed its conditional cut.

But Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, reiterated Friday that no one could tell it how much crude to export.

The price of oil had tumbled to fresh two-year lows on Monday with no sign of a resolution to the price war brewing between OPEC and the other major world crude producers.

A barrel of Brent North Sea crude for January delivery fell as low as US$16.65 before stabilizing somewhat at $17.10, down 65 cents from the previous close.