Oil-rich OPEC and non-OPEC countries struck a historic deal on Saturday for the latter to reduce oil output by around 600,000 barrels per day in the wake of November's OPEC agreement to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day. The summary cut amounts to some 1.8 million barrels per day in the first half of 2017.
"The key role in reaching this result is with the leadership of our countries. This is firstly, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who actively supports and has supported all our initiatives during the negotiations, as well as Prince Salman, who, in fact, came to Moscow and thus gave us an additional impulse," Novak said after the deal was closed.
The minister went on to describe warm Russian-Saudi relations as the driving force behind the effort to cut output rather than settling for an output freeze.
"Relations with Saudi Arabia is not just energy, it is also issues of our multilateral cooperation… We have an exact understanding and orders from our countries' leaders to develop trade and economic relations," he said.
The Saudi side is now set to send its co-chair of the Russian-Saudi intergovernmental commission to Russia within the next 10 days, according to Novak.
