MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/. Russia sees the need to create an OPEC-style platform for solid minerals to coordinate efforts to extract them, Minister of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov said.

Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Syria, the UAE, Yemen and Bahrain are the biggest players in the global energy sector, Kozlov noted. Together, these countries control more than a half of global oil and gas reserves and also support 53% of global oil supplies as well as 26% of gas deliveries, he stressed.

"However, the globally changing technological paradigm creates an objective need for a new platform similar to OPEC for oil, but with respect to solid minerals also," Kozlov said.

Such a platform could make it easier to coordinate efforts and work out a joint technological policy in managing "minerals of the future," the minister added.