Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar agree to freeze oil production

Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Qatar have agreed to freeze oil production and seek to stabilize slumping prices, a Venezuelan government official said on Tuesday.

The four countries -- three OPEC members and a non-member Russia -- have agreed to freeze oil production at the level of January 2016 and sought to reach an agreement with other important producers, including Iran and Iraq, to follow suit, Venezuelan Oil and Mining Minister Eulogio Del Pino wrote on Twitter after a meeting in Doha, Qatar.

The participant oil ministers have also decided to create a monitoring committee "to follow up on the results of these actions," said a press release by PDVSA, the Venezuelan national oil company.

"Today, we succeeded in a historic agreement for Venezuela and the rest of the countries for the stabilization of the market," wrote Del Pino on Twitter.

The minister, who is also president of the PDVSA, will visit Tehran on Wednesday to meet other important OPEC members to discuss the agreement.

After this, he will begin a two-week tour to convince the entire OPEC bloc of the need to work together to return economic stability to producers and consumers.

The freezing of production has been an avowed goal of the Venezuelan government since the middle of 2015, after prices slumped from 100 U.S. dollars a barrel to under 30 dollars within 12 months. Endi