According to Abdallah ben Hamad al-Attiyah, Quatar's Energy Minister, cooperation with so-called independent producers, non-OPEC states, will as always be maintained at the highest level, it particularly applies to Russia being the second largest oil producer in the world (actually Russia has already overcome OPEC leader Saudi Arabia in terms of production, being inferior to it in oil export volumes).
Of similar opinion is sheik Ahmed Fahd al-Ahmed as Sabah, Kuwait's Energy Minister, who, nevertheless, told RIA Novosti that "the greatest reason to cooperate with non-OPEC states is when oil prices are low". "When the prices are going up, each country forms its policy based on its own interests", he said.
At the same time a representative of Oman, which is not an OPEC state either, noted that Russia on its own had to make public the way it was going to cooperate with the oil-producing states in order to influence the oil prices.
Adopted at a special OPEC conference in Beirut on Thursday was a decision to increase oil production and export quotas by 2 million barrels a day from July 1. From August 1, these quotas are to increase by additional half a million, bringing the total amount of the OPEC official quotas to 26 million barrels of crude oil a day (Iraqi share is not accounted for).
