Venezuela pushing OPEC members for emergency meeting with Russia - WSJ

(Reuters) - Venezuela has been contacting other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), pushing for an emergency meeting with Russia to come up with a plan to stop the global oil price rout, the Wall Street Journal reported. Qatar's oil minister Mohammed al-Sada, who is the president of the OPEC conference, is among those Venezuela has contacted, the Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. "If Venezuela or others like Algeria can get Russia to commit to an action then we could have a reason to meet, but at the moment there is nothing that warrants an action," the Journal quoted a Gulf OPEC official as saying. OPEC officials were not immediately available for comment. This month, OPEC raised its forecast for oil supplies from non-member countries in 2015, a sign that the crude price collapse was taking longer than expected to hit U.S. shale drillers and other competing sources. Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh blamed the latest drop in oil prices on some members of OPEC and questioned whether any OPEC emergency meeting would reach an agreement, the oil ministry's news agency Shana reported on Thursday. Algeria said this month that the OPEC could hold an emergency meeting to discuss the price drop, but other OPEC delegates said no meeting was planned. (Reporting by Anet Josline Pinto in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey)