MOSCOW/LONDON As Russia prepares to meet OPEC next week, a briefing paper from a Moscow think tank has shed light on how the government was warned against cutting oil output late last year even though global prices were plummeting. Speculation was rife that Russia and the oil exporters’ cartel might strike a production deal to arrest the slide when Energy Minister Alexander Novak met his Saudi Arabian counterpart last November. However, the think tank had already advised Novak that OPEC would not cooperate and unilateral action would be costly at a time when Russian state finances were in a dire state. “If Russia cuts output, OPEC will take our market share in Europe,” a team led by energy expert Grigory Vygon said in the previously unpublished paper, commissioned by the Energy Ministry before the Nov. 25 meeting in Vienna. The paper was prepared by the Skolkovo Institute’s energy team, […]