Mr Sechin told the meeting that Russia proposed holding an international conference involving OPEC countries, independent oil producers, major oil companies, investors and the expert community in Moscow in the autumn of 2009.

"The conference should aim to conduct a candid and all-round discussion of ways to ensure energy security and the oil market's sustained development in the mid-term and the long-term," Mr Sechin said.

The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that Russia strove to expand bilateral and multilateral dialogue with all partner-countries, including such influential international associations as OPEC.

In this connection, Mr Sechin reminded delegates about the September 2008 initiative on launching regular energy dialogue between Russia and OPEC, the main players on the global energy market.

Mr Sechin also said Russia had actively supported the unprecedented efforts of OPEC and a number of independent oil producers to reduce the supply of oil to the global market.

"In 2008, we cut oil exports by 5.2% on 2007, or by 15 million tonnes. This was mostly facilitated by expanding domestic oil-refining volumes. In January-February 2009, nationwide oil output dwindled by 1.9% (1.5 million tonnes) on the same period of 2008 and totaled 78.5 million tonnes," Mr Sechin said.

He said joint efforts had largely helped to stabilise current prices at about $40 per barrel, but that the oil market remained sensitive to the situation at global trading platforms, and that, unfortunately, subsequent oil-price reductions were a major risk.

Mr Sechin said an expanded oil-reserving infrastructure of oil-producing countries could become yet another step for preventing undesirable oil market price fluctuations, that such projects required major investment, and that their joint implementation was the most appropriate scenario.

The Deputy Prime Minister proposed regularly streamlining the oil and petroleum price structure in order to make the oil market more stable. This process should heed fiscal burden specifics of oil producing and consuming countries, Mr Sechin said. In the future, we should harmonise taxation regimes with due account taken of all production chain elements, namely, production, transportation, refining and sales, in order to ensure their equal profitability, the Deputy Prime Minister said.

In our opinion, global economic developments force oil-producing countries to take joint action not only in the sphere of production regulation, but also coordinate their actions on a broader range of issues.

In this connection, Mr Sechin reiterated previous Russian proposals which, in his words, have only become more important.

"First of all, we must organise a conveniently located chain of oil trade platforms. Second, we must create a joint system of payments and settlements based on supply contracts that would control the structure of participants, gradually oust economically unjustified intermediaries, etc. Third, we must increase the number of oil markers and use the currency basket during oil payments. Unfortunately, we have not yet had any response to our proposals," Mr Sechin said.

Speaking about the Russian policy in the energy sphere, Mr Sechin said: "We continue to develop the required infrastructure for diversifying oil and petroleum exports. We expand and upgrade in-depth hydrocarbon refining facilities inside Russia in order to limit crude oil exports. We are implementing the required tax and customs policy measures in order to accomplish this objective," Mr Sechin said.

He said the Russian leadership also strove to boost domestic petroleum demand and to improve the quality of petroleum, and that it had been decided to supply another two million tonnes of fuel for the agro-industrial sector.

"And, finally, we have decided not to transfer several major deposits, including the Trebsa and Titova fields, to oil companies for the time being. They are located in north-western Russia with a developed transport infrastructure and not far from our traditional consumers. Tax incentives for expanded oil production mostly concern the projects which will only be implemented three to four years later," Mr Sechin said.

On the whole, Russia implements an absolutely transparent energy policy on the principles of predictability, responsibility, mutual trust and consideration for the interests of all oil market players.