"Over the course of the past year, Iran and Venezuela had very close stances and we were supportive of each other in many instances," said the Iranian official.

Therefore, OPEC has raised its supply to Asia, and Russia has also re-routed a great chunk of its rising production toward China and the Asia-Pacific over the past decade. Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as China's biggest supplier last year, exporting 1.05 million bpd of crude versus Saudi Arabia's 1.02 million.

OPEC’s biggest crude producer is embarking on a domestic renewable-energy program costing $30 billion to $50 billion. The country’s only solar plant in operation, aside from a limited pilot project, is a 10-megawatt facility on top of a parking lot at Saudi Aramco’s headquarters. The national utility, Saudi Electricity Co., is seeking bids for two solar plants to generate a combined 100 megawatts.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said OPEC’s 13 nations and 11 producers outside the cartel had made collective cuts totaling 1.5 million barrels a day since agreements were struck in late November and early December. Oil prices have risen nearly 20% since those deals were made, despite widespread skepticism over whether OPEC and other producers would follow through.

Brent for March settlement rose 27 cents to $55.72 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract fell 56 cents, or 1 percent, to $55.45 a barrel on Friday. Prices slid 2.9 percent last week, the biggest drop since November. The global benchmark crude traded at a premium of $2.32 to March WTI.

OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo forecast on Monday that stability would return to oil markets this year while price hawk Venezuela said it hoped its crude basket would rise to $70 in coming months.

China’s oil production is forecast to fall by as much as 7 percent this year, extending a record decline in 2016.

Global oil prices will witness "much more volatility" in 2017 even though markets may rebalance in the first half of the year if output cuts pledged by producers are implemented.

The world could run short of oil by 2020 due to the recent sharp global downturn in upstream investment, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Thursday.

Suhail Al Mazrouei said on Wednesday that Opec and non-Opec producers who have agreed to restrict their output over the next six months need to demonstrate that they are being implemented in order for their initiative to stabilise oil prices.