Reports in a Lebanese newspaper detail a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in which bin Sultan suggested a joint Russian-Saudi strategy to manage oil production volumes and prices, according to Platts.

“‘Let us examine how to put together a unified Russian-Saudi strategy on the subject of oil. The aim is to agree on the price of oil and production quantities that keep the price stable in global oil markets,’ Prince Bandar was reported to have said.”

Saudi Arabia and Russia were the world’s largest and second-largests producers of oil, respectively, in 2012, according to BP’s 2013 Statistical Review of Energy. Both countries’ economies are heavily reliant on oil exports. It makes sense that both would have an interest in helping to keep prices above a certain level. But while Russia seems to have nominally agreed to coordinate with Opec for years on oil production, the country has either not made or violated concrete commitments.

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