While Tehran wants to set its production target at about 4.2 million barrels per day, Riyadh last week asked its regional rival to freeze its output at 3.6 million barrels per day in return for a production cut.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that oil services company Weatherford International has agreed to pay a $140 million penalty to settle charges that it inflated earnings by using deceptive income tax accounting. Two of the company’s senior accounting executives at the time have agreed to settle charges that they were behind the scheme.

“We need a gentle adjustment to reassure the market,” Mr. Falih said at a briefing where he was flanked by his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak.

"Saudi Aramco is forecast to spend around $334 billion. This will be spent on material and services to support service facilities, infrastructure projects, drilling and maintain (oil) potential projects, unconventional resources both in the exploration phase and development and several other projects,"

“While the oil market has recovered from its most severe period, it’s still weak,” Nasser said.

“The kingdom is looking for consensus among oil producers to reach a credible arrangement for stabilising oil markets,” a Saudi official said on Friday. “We are looking at different scenarios and options to reaching this goal.”

The government is reviewing thousands of projects valued at about 260 billion riyals ($69 billion) and may cancel a third of them, three people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. The measures would impact the budget for several years, according to two of the people.

Saudi Arabia hopes to work with Russia for stability in oil markets, Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Sunday in a meeting with the Russian president in Hangzhou, China. World leaders are gathering in China this week for a summit of Group of 20 nations. Russia and Saudi Arabia will meet with other producers in Algeria this month to discuss oil markets.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 84 cents, or 1.9%, to $45.28 a barrel in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude added six cents, or 0.1%, to $47.69 a barrel.

State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, increased its official selling price for Arab Light crude to Asia by 90 cents a barrel, to 20 cents below the regional benchmark, it said Sunday in an e-mailed statement. The company had been expected to raise Arab Light prices by 50 cents a barrel, to 60 cents less than the benchmark for Asian buyers, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of seven refiners and traders in the region.