It was in one of the lounges in Terminal 2 at Moscow's Vnukovo airport, reserved for high ranking officials, that one of the bloodiest oil wars in recent history began. This is where the 1er March that Vladimir Putin brought together industry players to discuss the impact of coronavirus on the markets.
Before leaving for the city of Pskov, near the borders with Estonia and Latvia, the president gives his instructions to his energy minister: Alexandre Novak must oppose the attempts of the Organization of the exporting countries oil (OPEC) to associate Moscow with a further reduction in production aimed at stabilizing prices.
The Russian refusal was noted on March 6, during a meeting organized in Vienna in an icy climate. Even the Saudi offer to take on the bulk of this cut does not push Moscow back. This blockade of the Russian side shatters the previous production management agreement, concluded in 2016 as part of OPEC +, a structure which associates Russia, the world's second largest producer, with OPEC members. .
According to the Russian site The bell, who recounted in detail the meeting in Vnukovo, a man exclaims on hearing the presidential decision: "Now let's show them! " "Their", it is the American producers of shale oil, which have taken, since 2016, market shares. The one who exclaims is Igor Setchine, the boss of the public giant Rosneft, also a former KGB member and close to Vladimir Putin.
Replica of Saudi Arabia
Mr. Setchine is leading the sling against this 2016 agreement. He has behind him some of the Russian groups in the sector, who hardly like having to reduce their production and limit their investments in new projects. In February 2019, he had already written to the president, using the sensitive cord: the high prices are, according to him, "A strategic threat to Russia" facing Washington.
A year later, Vladimir Putin agreed with these arguments. The 2016 agreement, however, brought in around $ 100 billion (88.6 billion euros) in Russian finance, according to expert Marcel Salikhov of the Haute Ecole d'Économie.
However, in the meantime, Washington has been particularly aggressive in the energy field, by imposing sanctions on the European gas pipeline project North Stream 2, which is to connect Russia to Germany by the Baltic Sea, but also against a Rosneft subsidiary active in Venezuela. The Vienna decision allows a double blow: punish the United States and rid the market of the weakest American producers.
