Saudi's Naimi: OPEC Cannot Cut Alone But Others Would Not

"OPEC's quota as well as Saudi Arabia's in the global oil market has not changed for several years, which is at the level of 30 million barrels per day for OPEC, out of that around 9.6 million bpd is the kingdom's, while the production of others from outside OPEC is continuously rising," Naimi told SPA.

"In a situation like this, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the kingdom or for OPEC to take any action that would reduce its market share and increase the shares of others, at a time when it is difficult to control prices," he said.

"We would lose on both market share and price."

Before the Vienna meeting last month, there were hints that Russia could cut output or exports if OPEC did the same.

But the message from Moscow after the meeting was that the world's second largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia, will maintain its output levels even if there was no guarantee prices would not go much lower.

Moscow's relations with OPEC were soured by its pledge to cut output in tandem with the group in the early 2000s. Russia failed to follow through, and raised exports instead.