Alignment of views on oil and more as Lavrov visits the Gulf

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Riyadh on 10 March – on a whistle-stop tour of three Gulf monarchies – provided an opportunity for his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal Bin Farhan to reaffirm that the Opec+ heavyweights were in alignment. This was an implicit rebuff to reports of significant differences over oil policy, as Moscow has sought bigger quotas for its crude while Riyadh takes the strain with output cuts. Prince Faisal assured a press briefing that “we and Russia would like an oil price which is fair to consumers and to producers.”