Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday called for fairer oil prices to help producers, saying OPEC and states not aligned with the organization needed to create a "new mechanism" to ensure the price of oil was propped up. Speaking at the World Energy Congress in Istanbul, Maduro said an informal meeting of OPEC members on Wednesday that was also expected to include non-OPEC state Russia could be a first step towards creating a new alliance. The price of crude has recovered in the last days but the recent period of low oil prices has been deeply hurtful for producers like Venezuela who are heavily dependent on crude exports. "Prices are not sustainable anymore and have fallen to their lowest levels for the last 40 years," Maduro said. "We see they are even below production costs." "Prices must be fairer and more realistic.... for investment we need fair prices." Referring to the upcoming OPEC talks on Wednesday, he expressed hope that "the energy ministers can reach an agreement and through this agreement we hope there can be an alliance among producers. "If there can be let it be formed. For the market to have stability we are ready to do everything, hopefully in the next six months we will come up with a new mechanism. "We need a new mechanism. The oil world needs realistic and fair prices." After finally winning the approval of Saudi Arabia, OPEC last month agreed to a surprise output cut to drive up prices, its first in eight years. Oil reaches a year high Brent crude prices rose to their highest in a year on Monday after Russia said it was ready to join a proposed deal to cap oil production in a bid to stem a two-year price slide. Global benchmark Brent crude futures reached the highest level since Oct. 12, 2015 at $53.22 a barrel at 1335 GMT, up $1.29 on Friday's close. US futures also gained ground, reaching a four-month high of $51.10 a barrel. Russian President Vladimir Putin said an output freeze or even a production cut were likely the only right decisions to maintain energy sector stability. "Russia is ready to join the joint measures to cap production and is calling for other oil exporters to join," Putin said, speaking at an energy congress in Istanbul. OPEC, of which Russia is not a member, aims to agree an output cut by the time it meets in late November. The goal is to cut production to a range of 32.50 million barrels per day (bpd) to 33.0 million bpd. OPEC's current output is a record 33.6 million bpd.
