Russia’s oil producers have started preparations to meet the nation’s pledge to curb output as part of the “historic” pact between OPEC and 11 producers outside the group, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. “The first stage of the cut we will see as soon as early January,” Novak said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Vienna on Saturday after the deal was reached. The pact, the first global oil deal in 15 years, was “a crowning achievement of a very long process, of a lot of work which has been put into this over the past several months.” Russia and 10 other non-OPEC nations pledged to curb oil production by 558,000 barrels a day, joining forces with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to help rebalance the market and boost prices. Russia will contribute 300,000 barrels a day in cuts, decreasing […]