The foreign ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, and non-OPEC leader, Russia, on Wednesday agreed to better cooperation within the group.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s remarks came at an online news conference with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan.

Lavrov said oil producers of OPEC and some non-OPEC producer countries, known as OPEC+, would try to avoid large price fluctuations and ensure the current prices more or less reflect the equilibrium between producers and consumers.

Describing the recent attack by Yemeni rebel group Houthis on Saudi oil facilities as “unacceptable”, Lavrov said Russia and Saudi Arabia would work to prevent the negative effects of increasing oil prices on the global economy.

The two leaders of OPEC+ have recently cemented their cooperation during the group’s 14th ministerial meeting last week when the member countries convened to discuss production quotas after March.

Having yielded the positive outcomes from the previous meeting in January, in which the group announced massive production cuts and brought the oil prices to pre-pandemic levels, the group again decided to not to increase the production quota.

The new deal also supported the uptrend in the oil prices, which briefly hit $71 a barrel on Monday.

By Sibel Morrow

Anadolu Agency

energy@aa.com.tr