Soviets Approve Cut in Oil Exports to Support OPEC

The Soviet Union will reduce its oil exports “a little further” to support an effort by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to prop up world oil prices, a senior official said Thursday.

In one of the first Soviet endorsements of an OPEC price-boosting campaign, Soviet officials agreed to a request made this week in Moscow by the new Saudi Arabian oil minister, Hisham Nazer, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

No details were provided on how large the cutback in Soviet oil shipments will be. Last August, the Kremlin reduced its oil exports to Western Europe by 8% or 9% after talks with Iranian officials.

Oil Output Declines

The Soviet Union, the world’s largest oil producer despite sagging output from its West Siberian fields, is not a member of OPEC.

The latest move, however, reflects the severe effect that falling oil prices have had on the Soviet foreign trade balance.

The Soviet Union relies on sale of its oil abroad for more than half of the hard-currency earnings that finance its purchases of Western technology and grain.

“We are an oil exporter and we are interested in stabilizing prices, so we have cut back our exports (recently),” Gennady I. Gerasimov, chief spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, said at a briefing.

“As a result of our talks with the Saudi oil minister, we are cutting back our oil exports a little further,” Gerasimov added.

Nazer, the first Saudi oil minister to visit Moscow, had talks here with Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and Foreign Trade Minister Boris I. Aristov.

OPEC nations agreed last month in Geneva to cut production in hopes that available supplies will be consumed and that prices then will rise. The price of oil, which had plunged to less than $10 a barrel, has climbed back to $18 a barrel but is still far below the $30 price of a year ago.

Ryzhkov voiced Kremlin backing for the effort to bolster oil prices. “The Soviet Union approves of OPEC’s constructive efforts,” he said. If OPEC’s tactics work, its members and other cooperating oil-producing nations would suffer declining revenues in the near future because of lower production but would recoup any losses--and perhaps gain considerably more in the long run--if prices remain higher.

At his briefing, Gerasimov said the Soviet Union has no objection to closer diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia. Although the two nations established diplomatic relations in 1926, they have never sent ambassadors to each other’s capitals.

Nazer was Saudi Arabia’s first Cabinet minister to visit Moscow since its foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, came in 1982. The Soviet policy of state atheism was one reason why Saudi Arabia, a staunch Muslim nation, stayed aloof in its relations.

Gerasimov said he expects follow-up meetings after the visit by Nazer, who left Thursday for Norway.