“They have to stop doing this,” one OPEC official said, referring to private talks between Russia and Saudi Arabia. “It’s not justice. The lives of entire populations are at stake.” The Riyadh-Moscow relationship is a key reason behind Qatar’s surprise exit from OPEC after 57 years with the cartel, an official in the emirate said. Cooperation between a Russia-led group of non-OPEC oil nations and OPEC kingmaker Saudi Arabia helped producers prop up prices with deep production cuts in 2017. While Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that he had agreed with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to extend efforts to balance oil markets, they didn’t give details on specific cuts and no Russian oil companies have signed off on a plan to curb production. The two met on the sidelines of a weekend summit of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations in Argentina. The […]