OPEC
should leave production levels unchanged: Algeria minister
AFP
VIENNA
Petroleumworld.com 01 30 06
OPEC should leave its production ceiling unchanged at a near 25-year
high and reassess the situation when the cartel meets again in
March, Algeria's Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said on Sunday.
"For this meeting I think we should leave things the way
they are," the minister told reporters as he arrived at a
hotel in Vienna ahead on a one-day meeting of the Organisation
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday.
"We will see in March what is going to happen," Khelil
added.
OPEC, which groups Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, the
United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, Indonesia, Algeria
and Qatar, is due to meet again on March 8.
A consensus appears to be growing among the 11-nation group to
keep the production ceiling at 28 million barrels per day because
of high oil prices, fuelled by stability fears over key producers
Iran and Nigeria.
Tehran, however, has called on OPEC to cut its production ceiling
by one million barrels per day.
Khelil was one of the first ministers to arrive in Vienna after
his Nigerian counterpart Edmund Daukoru, who holds the rotating
presidency, touched down on Saturday.
Kuwaiti Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah and Indonsesia's
Purnomo Yusgiantoro, however, have decided not to attend Tuesday's
meeting, OPEC's sectretariat said, without giving a reason.
There was also a question mark over whether Iraqi Oil Minister
Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum would be making an appearance.
Oil prices in New York are now around 3.0 dollars below their
level on Monday, when crude futures soared to 69.20 dollars per
barrel on global supply concerns linked also to the crisis over
Iran's nuclear ambitions.
That price level, the highest in more than four months, later
fell on profit-taking. Other factors weighing on prices have been
an offer from Saudi Arabia to supply more crude if necessary and
an easing of tensions in Iran.
AFP
01/29/06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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