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OPEC could avoid quota cut this year at current prices: president
Reuters
Opec's president Edmund Daukoru
AFP
PARIS
Petroleumworld.com 04 10 06OPEC could avoid lowering its production quota this year if crude prices remain at their current level, the cartel's president Edmund Daukoru said here Friday.
"If prices remain at this level, I don't see a cut," he said during an oil conference.
Asked what the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could do to prevent prices from shooting up over 70 dollars a barrel, he said: "We do know how to do best and that is to build new production capacities."
Qatar's energy minister, Abdallah ben Hamed al-Attiyah, predicted that OPEC ministers at their next meeting in Caracas on June 1 will take no major decisions affecting quotas and prices.
"I think we will go to Caracas to say we are here and we will do nothing," he said.
OPEC at the moment is producing at "almost maximum" levels.
"Oil is flooding in the market."
The cartel's interim secretary general, Mohammad Barkindo, stressed that the oil market was well-supplied despite high crude prices, which at close to 68 dollars are approaching records -- 70.85 dollars -- set in New York last September.
Daukoru also said OPEC officials would confer informally during an international energy forum in Doha, Qatar taking place between April 21 and 25.
But he said the encounter would not constitute an official OPEC meeting and would instead be an informal gathering of officials from member countries attending the forum.
AFP 04 07 06 1647 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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