OPEC General Secretary, Russian President Hold First-Ever Kremlin Meeting

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OPEC’s General Secretary, Abdalla El-Badri met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow Wednesday. In speaking with Oil&Gas Eurasia at a conference preceding his meeting with the Russian president, El-Badri said his Kremlin visit was a first-ever official meeting between an OPEC General Secretary and a Russian President.

Ask by Oil&Gas Eurasia, what he hoped to achieve in his meeting with Medvedev, El-Badri answered diplomatically and said he was hopeful of achieving a greater level of cooperation between OPEC and Russia, more mutual understanding and an exchange of views regarding global problems in the world economy, finance and the oil and gas industry. Asked to comment on Russia’s role in deciding oil prices, El-Badri responded: “Russia is not a member of OPEC.” El-Badri’s Kremlin meeting followed a speech on oil prices and the global financial crisis during the Annual “Russian Energy Week” Conference in Moscow. Opening the conference was Deputy Russian Prime Minister Igor Sechin who is also chairman of the board of Rosneft; and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrey Denisov.

While Russia is not an OPEC member, Russia has long been involved unofficially in OPEC discussions and attends OPEC meetings. Meetings are also held at the ministerial level through the Russia-OPEC Energy Dialogue which was created in 2005. On Thursday, the Energy Week conference will again address the OPEC issue at a round table discussion including Deputy Russsian Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky; Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Nobuo Tanaka and the General Secretary of the International Energy Forum (a ministerial level organization involving OPEC, the IEA, Russia, China and India.).

In a related move, Russia resurrected again this week, talk of forming an OPEC-style group of natural gas exporters. On Tuesday Iran's Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said he and Qatar's Energy Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah and Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller agreed to establish a high-ranking natural gas committee (www.oilandgaseurasia.com/news/p/0/news/3053). Unlike Nozari, Miller did not refer to a "gas OPEC" at a joint news conference but said the three sides had set up a "major gas troika" that would help implement joint projects. Russia, Iran and Qatar are ranked the first, second and third biggest holders of natural gas reserves in the world and together boast more than half of the global total.

Alexei Chesnokov is a staff writer for Oil&Gas Eurasia. 

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