Saudi Aramco and Gazprom have agreed to increase their cooperation in the gas sector through setting up a joint coordinating committee, according to a Gazprom press release.

The companies signed an addendum to their October 2017 memorandum of understanding (MoU), which aims at “widening the possible areas of cooperation between the companies.” The joint coordinating committee will be set up in order to implement the memorandum.

The potential areas of collaboration outlined by Aramco CEO, Amin Nasser, at the onset of the MoU included: international gas; downstream petrochemicals; technology, research and innovation; trading; and climate change and carbon management, OilPrice.com reported.

Saudi Arabia and Russia have also been collaborating on the OPEC non-OPEC production cut agreement first struck in January 2017. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced on March 26 2018 that Riyadh and Moscow were in talks regarding the extension of the agreement.

“We are working to shift from a year-to-year agreement to a 10-to-20-year agreement,” Salman told Reuters in an interview in New York. “We have agreement on the big picture, but not yet on the detail,” he added.

Saudi Arabia spearheaded OPEC’s coalition with Russia and other non-OPEC countries to help reduce oversupply when oil prices collapsed to below $30 a barrel in 2016 compared to above $100 a barrel in 2014.

Crude has since recovered to roughly $70 a barrel but is facing significant threats from the US shale industry.