OPEC is effectively extinct as a united organisation and the time when it could determine global oil market conditions should be forgotten, Igor Sechin, head of Russia's biggest oil firm Rosneft, says.
The comments are the first from Russia's most influential oil executive after crude producers failed to agree to freeze output to support prices at a meeting in Qatar last month.
Sechin has been sceptical about OPEC before, saying that top oil producer Russia should stick to its own strategy and protect its market share.
"The 1970s, when a series of the largest Middle East producers could determine global oil market conditions by creating cartel structures such as OPEC, should be forgotten," Sechin told Reuters in emailed comments.
"At the moment a number of objective factors exclude the possibility for any cartels to dictate their will to the market... As for OPEC, it has practically stopped existing as a united organisation."
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A deal to freeze oil output by OPEC and non-OPEC producers fell apart at a meeting in Doha last month after Saudi Arabia refused to commit without Iran joining in.
