President Muhammadu Buhari and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, King
Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz in Riyadh, have backed efforts to stabilise the global
oil market.
The agreement was reached after the two
leaders held bilateral talks during which they had extensive discussions on
regional and global issues.
According to a statement signed by the
President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba
Shehu, Buhari and his host accepted the fact that their countries’ economies
were tied to oil and that wellbeing of both countries will be in jeopardy with
instability in the world oil market.
But, Buhari made no commitment to a
production freeze in the talk that was held in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
“President Buhari and King Salman committed themselves to doing
all that is possible to stabilise the market and rebound the oil price,” Shehu
said in the statement.
Buhari, who arrived in Riyadh Monday
night, is in the oil-rich country a week after Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela
and Qatar agreed at talks in Doha to freeze production at January levels in a
bid to stem the free fall in oil prices.
The agreement is conditional on other
major producers joining in, as oil heavyweights seek to ensure that others do
not take advantage of output limits to win market share.
The statement after Tuesday’s talks
made no mention of Nigeria joining the freeze but analysts say the OPEC member
is likely to eventually support the move.
A report in the AFP said
the official Saudi Press
Agency (SPA) also
reported the talks between Saudi’s Deputy Oil Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin
Salman and Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu.
The talks, the report said, centred on
“the best way for (market) stability” and “the cooperation of producing
countries inside and outside OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries)”.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in the
oil cartel had been refusing to cut production, leading to a supply glut that
has seen prices fall by 70 per cent since mid-2014.
Poorer OPEC members, including Nigeria,
have been hard hit by the price drop but even the wealthy Gulf states have been
forced to adopt austerity measures to cope with falling oil revenues.