“Saudi Arabia has announced that it has reduced prices ... announced an increase in production. We believe that under these conditions this is probably not the best option. It would be right to keep production at the levels achieved in the first quarter. We came out with such an initiative, ”RIA Novosti quoted Novak as saying.
On March 11, Saudi Aramco announced plans to increase production capacity for oil production of not 1 million barrels per day. Such an instruction was received by the company from the Ministry of Energy. The deadline is not specified.
As the newspaper The Wall Street Journal wrote, citing a source, the reduction in oil prices undertaken by Saudi Aramco is aimed at weakening Russia's position in the world market for this energy carrier.
At the same time, a source in OPEC, familiar with the plans of the Saudi authorities, told TASS that the kingdom did not declare Russia a price war in the oil market and still considers Moscow to be its most important partner.