Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is urging an immediate summit of Opec and non-Opec producers to "coordinate strategies" to stabilize oil prices.
But his call comes only days after a meeting with his Russian counterpart was met by confirmation that Moscow will not countenance a policy of cutting production. This leaves it unclear what effective joint action Maduro believes to be possible.
"A meeting of the heads of state of Opec and other oil producers is necessary to forge a strategy to reorder the world oil market," Maduro said yesterday from Jamaica where he participated in the 10th PetroCaribe heads of state meeting.
Maduro said he received support for his proposal in recent meetings with the heads of Russia, China and Qatar.
He added that Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani "likes Venezuela's proposal for a heads of state summit between Opec and non-Opec producers and promised he would consult with other Opec producers to gain support for a summit to strengthen the oil price."
Maduro said "joint strategies agreed in Beijing with [President Vladimir] Putin are now being consulted on with other Opec producers, and we expect that our proposals will be accepted and that very soon we will announce a summit of Opec and non-Opec heads of state to establish the new rules to set oil prices and enable oil markets to function more efficiently in a win-win for Opec and non-Opec producers, for consumers and for the investors that have been affected by low oil prices."
Maduro declined to detail the strategies he said that he hammered out with Putin during their meeting in Beijing last week. Energy ministry and presidential palace officials said they had no direct knowledge of the joint Venezuela-Russia oil stabilization measures.
Russian and Chinese diplomatic officials contacted by Argus today in Caracas said that the topic of a summit of Opec and the largest non-Opec producers came up in separate meetings last week between Maduro and presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
But the Russian diplomatic official cautioned that Russia currently is "not disposed" toward curbing its oil production.
Qatar's embassy in Caracas declined to comment.
Maduro said his trip to Vietnam, China and Qatar from 31 August to 6 September led to a more than $6/bl bounce in the average price of Venezuelan state-owned PdV's crude exports last week.
PdV's average export price closed at $42.66/bl for the week ending 4 September, an increase of $6.18/bl compared with the previous week's average price of $36.48/bl for the week from 24-28 September, the energy ministry said.
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