Maduro-Putin meeting lacks concrete results

OREANDA-NEWS. Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro today met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss "joint strategies to strengthen oil prices" the Venezuelan energy ministry said. Both men are visiting Beijing.

But the Russian side did not expect any concrete measures to come out of the meeting. Caracas is keen to promote joint action between Opec and Russia to reduce crude production in a bid to bolster prices. But this is in direct contradiction to the current Saudi Arabia-led Opec strategy of securing market share, a strategy justified in part by Riyadh after November talks with Russian officials made clear that Moscow would not cut alongside Opec. Russia has consistently maintained that for technical reasons it cannot modulate output from its Siberian fields.

Against this background, Russia's view is that bilateral action with Venezuela would be ineffective as other producers would simply raise their output.