Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday met Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and both men praised "the level of cooperation in the OPEC+ format", the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The news followed the Wall Street Journal report that says some OPEC members are considering the idea of suspending Russia's participation in the production deal as Western sanctions hurt the nation's ability to produce more.
According to the WSJ, exempting Russia from the agreement will allow other producers, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to ramp up output, something that the US and Europe, and later the International Energy Agency, have pressed them to do.
Notably, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have repeatedly stated that they are not planning to increase oil production beyond the quotas set by the OPEC+ agreement. However, Russia's exemption from the deal could change these plans. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are OPEC+ members accounting for the biggest part of the cartel's spare production capacity.
Today, OPEC+ will meet to discuss production. Analysts did not expect any surprising moves from the cartel until the article by the WSJ was published. The WSJ report, which cites unnamed OPEC representatives, may be of interest to the OPEC participants.
Oil prices are steadily holding near the psychological level of $100 and are currently trading above $113:
OPEC+ was created in 2016 to support the oil market at that time. Initially, its goal was to reduce production in order to reach lower prices. With lockdowns, the production cut was set at 8 million bpd. Last year, the deal was canceled as producers planned to return to pre-pandemic output levels as energy demand was picking up.
