"Congratulations on your appointment as a Minister of Energy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I know you as a professional energetic person and I am sure that you will do a lot for the Kingdom and for our relations", Novak tweeted following the meeting with his Saudi counterpart.
Novak added that Russia highly appreciated the existing dialogue between Moscow and Riyadh and was committed to continuing to develop bilateral cooperation.
Bin Salman took over as energy minister from Khalid Falih on Sunday. The news on the appointment came as a surprise for most energy industry officials who questioned whether Riyadh would stick to the OPEC+ deal on global output cuts.
In early July, bin Salman met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vienna as part of the OPEC+ high-level meetings to discuss joint efforts to coordinate oil output to bolster prices amid an oversaturated global oil market.
The OPEC+ deal on the reduction of oil production has been in force since the beginning of 2017. It has been repeatedly extended, and its conditions keep changing.
For the first half of 2019, the combined production reduction was agreed in the amount of 1.2 million barrels per day from the October 2018 level. At the July meeting in Vienna, OPEC+ extended the agreement on the same terms until April 2020.
