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Russia and Kazakhstan to join OPEC at talks

Exploration & Production

As OPEC countries are to meet with non-OPEC countries in order to discuss a production output cut in order to bring the oil price back above the US$55 per barrel mark 

Russia, the largest non-OPEC oil producer in the world, is set to meet with OPEC officials on 10 December in order to discuss the falling oil price. As it stands, Russian, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijani officials have confirmed their attendance to the talks in Vienna, Italy, but no target output cut figure is on the table yet.

It was been reported that Russian oil officials have met in advance of the talks at the weekend. These talks were hosted by the Ministry of Energy in Moscow on 7 December. Alexander Novak, Russia's Minster of Energy met with chiefs from Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Tatneft, Novatek and Surgutneftegaz ahead of his visit to Vienna on 10 December. 

"All companies have supported our proposals for an oil production cap," Olga Golant, spokeswoman for Novak, told journalists after the meeting. 

It is expected that Russia are to propose a cut of 300,000 bpd from its 11mn bpd output currently. In November 2016, Russia hit its output record of 11.21mn bpd. 

Kazakhstan, the second largest producing former Soviet state, and Azerbaijan, the third largest, are also to attend the talks on 10 December, and are expected to account for another 300,00 bpd cut in production. 

For Kazakhstan, its projection for oil production appear to only be increasing as it officially relaunched the offshore Kashagan field, which is expected to produce around 192,000 bpd by 2017.