Currently, OPEC has 12 members after several composition changes – specifically, Angola's accession and the return of Ecuador in 2007.
“It’s widely known that Russia has contacts on the expert level with representatives from OPEC, but as far as I know, the question of Russia joining this organization has not been put forward and isn’t on the agenda,” Peskov told journalists in response to an earlier statement by Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s Rosneft oil giant, who said that there were no advantages of Russia's membership in OPEC.
Rosneft’s CEO explained his statement, made on Monday, by the technological differences in methods of oil extraction between Russia and OPEC members, as well as the fact that the Russian oil market is mostly privatized while the majority of oil companies in OPEC member states are state-run.
