Faced with the lowest oil
prices in more than a decade, the world's two largest crude
producers announced a tentative agreement to freeze their output to
shore up prices, subject to bringing other nations on board.
Saudi
Arabia and Russia, along with Venezuela and Qatar, would limit their output at
January levels, from a previously
unannounced meeting of the countries' oil ministers in Qatar.
Saudi
Arabia and Russia had ramped up their production to retain
market share and knock out higher-cost producers, notably in the U.S.,
where fracking produced excess oil that
flooded a sluggish global market. In the past year and a half, benchmark
crude prices have fallen by more than 70 percent, from peaks of
more than $100 in June 2014 to below $30 in January.