"OPEC can't take a unilateral decision, for example, to cut production and others ... raise production. Either we all go to cut production to really defend prices or we have to wait and see,"

"First of all, our policy calls for maintaining production at 525-530 million tonnes (a year), according to our energy strategy"

Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's state oil giant, is seeking to borrow $4.7 billion from banks to refinance capital used to build a refinery in collaboration with China's Sinopec, three sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

Indonesia wouldn’t try to block an OPEC decision to throttle back output “as long as we wouldn’t get cut,” the country’s OPEC Governor Widhyawan Prawiraatmadja said in an interview in Jakarta on Tuesday. “We are new, we like to listen, to observe,” he said, adding he didn’t know what price level would trigger an extraordinary OPEC meet.

By 2035 global energy consumption increases by 37% from today’s levels with virtually all (96%) the growth in non-OECD countries and more than half coming from India and China.

Russia is against an increase in global crude production, rather than favouring a reduction, and remains pessimistic about the possibility of Moscow and Riyadh reaching a production coordination deal, Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak said Thursday. "We are in favor of, not a cut, but of countries not increasing their output, so that demand, which is growing year-by-year, is covered by the oversupply that exists in the market," Novak said.

Output from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 230,100 barrels a day in November to 31.695 million a day, the highest since April 2012, as surging Iraqi volumes more than offset a slight pullback in Saudi Arabia. The organization is pumping about 900,000 barrels a day more than it anticipates will be needed next year.

Differing views about who should bear the brunt of oil production cuts to lift prices forced Opec to default to its existing policy to keep on pumping last week. This has laid bare the gaping divide between Saudi Arabia and its arch rival Iran.

Many poorer OPEC members have said the group's largest producer was effectively twisting their arms, prompting the Saudi oil minister, Ali al Naimi, to say he would listen to everyone this time.

Although the collapse in oil prices has hit the budgets of Opec’s members hard, the group’s ability to act collectively has rarely looked weaker. Brent crude touched a six-year low of $41.30 a barrel on Monday.