Aramco agreed to buy Saudi crude at fixed prices.

Aramco, the oil company nationalized by Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, said the multiyear pact calls for purchases of Saudi crude oil at $17.52 a barrel. The significance of the deal depended on whether Exxon, Chevron, Mobil and Texaco, the former owners of Aramco, agree to buy oil from Aramco at related fixed prices, which wasn’t immediately clear. But analysts said the agreement could do much to establish the credibility of OPEC’s Geneva agreement to cut production and fix prices at about $18 a barrel. As recently as mid-January, the four former Aramco partners rejected a Saudi offer to sell them fixed volumes of crude at fixed prices.