“In my view, the current price range of oil is comfortable for both producers and consumers,” said Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak in an interview with news agency TASS. The official added that the US$80+ Brent crude prices we saw earlier this year were a temporary thing that had to do mostly with the uncertainty surrounding Iran, which prompted a lot of speculative oil buying. Now the price has corrected, although uncertainty around Iran remains. Novak’s interview comes on the heels of a Reuters report citing sources from the oil industry speaking on condition of anonymity that said the Kremlin had accepted the need to reduce production again at a meeting between government officials and representatives of local oil companies. “The idea at the meeting was that Russia needs to reduce. The key question is how quickly and by how much,” one of the Reuters sources said, adding “Most […]