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Russia should not join OPEC - Putin's aide
Interfax
Moscow, 21 November: Russia's admission to OPEC would badly damage the Russian economy, President Vladimir Putin's aide Andrey Illarionov told a Wednesday [21 November] news conference at the Interfax central office.
Asked what Russia should decide on the OPEC suggestion to reduce oil extraction, he said that "nothing should be done because OPEC is an unreliable partner, a historically-doomed organization and also because in the price war declared by OPEC, Russia has a more advantageous position".
Illarionov said that the declaration of a price war to Russia several weeks after the opposite proposal of joining the organization is an indication of the unreliability of OPEC as a partner.
In his opinion, OPEC is doomed because not a single cartel formed in the 1960s-1970s for price regulation proved effective. "In the past decades the OPEC share on the world oil market dropped from 72-73 per cent to 40 per cent," he said.
Illarionov said the Russian stance in the price war is advantageous because the Russian economy is more diversified that the economies of OPEC countries and the Russian budget is less dependent on oil prices. In the past few years Russia has accumulated significant forex reserves.
He stressed that the decisions to cut or boost oil extraction in Russia should be made by oil companies and government interference in the process is "absolutely impermissible."
"The attempts of government interference in the operations of private companies undermine the very foundations of the Russian civilized market economy," Illarionov said.
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