OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and top non-OPEC producer Russia are showing signs of flexibility about agreeing to tackle an oil glut that has pushed prices to 12-year lows, the oil minister of Iraq said on Tuesday. "We have seen some flexibility from the brothers in Saudi Arabia and a change in tone from Russia," Adel Abdel Mahdi, whose country is the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was quoted as saying by Reuters. His comments in Kuwait boosted Brent crude by 3% to above $31 a barrel, although such an idea has been repeatedly mooted and dismissed for more than a year. "This should be finalized and we should hear some solid suggestions coming from all parts, from OPEC and non-OPEC, at least from OPEC," the minister said. OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said other producers should work with the group to tackle swollen global stockpiles so prices can recover. Moscow, seen as key to any agreement, has so far refused to cooperate. But Leonid Fedun, vice president of Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer, was quoted as saying on Monday that Moscow needed to start working with OPEC.
