"Our ongoing strategic engagements and discussions with partners in Russia are taking our relationship to new heights," he said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Saudi Aramco Research Center for upstream technologies in Moscow.

The comments were reported in a company statement.

Russia's RIA news agency earlier quoted Nasser as saying that he planned to discuss the purchase of a stake in Novatek's

Arctic LNG-2 project with Novatek's boss in Moscow on Friday.