Leaders of the G20 countries may hold an emergency teleconference on Thursday in connection with the situation around the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the newspaper, Washington sees the teleconference as a good opportunity to start a discussion with Saudi Arabia about the need to end the price war, which already negatively affected US energy companies, especially those in the shale oil sector.
Oil prices halved since early March due to the expected demand slump due to the breakup of the OPEC+ oil output cut deal and amid the coronavirus outbreak. After OPEC+ states failed to agree, market analysts began to predict a "price war" between main exporters. According to media reports, Saudi Arabia is trying to eat off Russia's share on its traditional European markets, offering oil with huge discounts. The kingdom officially announced an increase in oil shipments in April to 12.3 million barrels per day, 300,000 barrels per day higher than its production capacity. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia and Saudi Arabia were not waging price wars on the oil market, explaining that the market slump was due to "unfavorable situation globally."
