Russia's top investment official says Moscow, OPEC could act to prevent oil spike

Russia's top investment official says Moscow, OPEC could act to prevent oil spike
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By Reuters
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By Katya Golubkova and Dmitry Zhdannikov

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Russia and OPEC's leader Saudi Arabia may act together to prevent a further oil price spike, Russia's top state investment official said on Friday.

Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund RDIF and one of the architects of a joint deal between Moscow and OPEC to cut production, told Reuters joint coordinated action to cool prices would make sense.

The comment came as Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al Falih came to St Petersburg for talks with Russian peer Alexander Novak.

Falih also met Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of Russia's top economic conference together with other foreign executives and officials.

"Russia really benefited from this pact with Saudi Arabia and our budget received 3 trillion roubles (36.5 billion pounds) of additional income from that deal," Dmitriev told Reuters television.

"There is no doubt that Russia and Saudi Arabia will continue this strategic cooperation going forward."

"Current issues with Iran and other countries could produce some oil spikes. So joint coordinated action to avoid oil spikes to ensure that there is sufficient market balancing definitely makes sense," Dmitriev said.

Dmitriev helped design the current deal under which Russia and OPEC agreed to reduce supplies by 1.8 million barrels per day from 2017. 

OPEC meets in Vienna on June 22.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Katya Golubkova; editing by Maria Kiselyova)

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