Crude oil prices came under pressure on Friday after reports claiming that Saudi Arabia and Russia was looking to develop a “comprehensive bilateral agreement” on energy cooperation.
Russian energy minister Alexander Novak in a statement said that Russia and Saudi Arabia have a general consensus that the OPEC+ format should be “institutionalized” and extended until 2019 and beyond for oil market monitoring and joint action in case of need, as reported by Reuters. Novak further added that Russia and Saudi Arabia were in talks to sign a mutual agreement which “will draw their cooperation in the energy arena to a new level.”
The barrel of West Texas Intermediate lost more than $2 on Friday to erase all of its gains that it recorded on the first four trading days of the week and was last priced at $65, where it was down 2.8% on the day.
The weekly report released by the oil services firm Baker Hughes showed that the number of rigs drilling for gas in the United States fell by 4 to 194 in the week to Jun 15, while oil-directed drilling rigs increased by 1 to 863.
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