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Doha forum opens amid Kuwait offer to calm oil prices
By Amelie Herenstein and Sam Dagher
AFP
DOHA
Petroleumworld.com 04 24 06
A major energy forum opened in Qatar Sunday as Kuwait proposed reactivating a standby oil output of two million barrels per day, last made available in September, in a bid to ease record high petrol prices.
Meanwhile, Iran and the United States traded blame for who was responsible for rattling oil markets in their row over Tehran's nuclear programme.
"As Kuwait, we support bringing the two million back to the market. Whenever there will be a call, the two million will be available," Kuwait's Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Fahd al-Sabah told reporters as he arrived in Doha for the 10th International Energy Forum.
The powerful 11-member OPEC cartel, which includes Kuwait, will hold informal talks Monday on the sidelines of the Doha conference after oil prices breached a record high of 75 dollars a barrel on Friday.
OPEC last made the standby oil output available in September in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the US Gulf coast, and then suspended it three months later.
Sheikh Ahmed said he would propose making it available this time until June.
"At least I am trying to help the market," he said, adding that it would not make sense to increase OPEC quotas since most members were producing close to their maximum capacity.
"We can't go for something that is not logical."
The Kuwaiti minister said oil prices were being driven among other factors by low spare capacity in the United States, the world's largest consumer, as well as what he termed "tension in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and Iran and the geopolitics problem."
He was referring to mounting worries in the Gulf in connection to Iran's standoff with the international community over its nuclear programme.
Almost 20 percent of the world's daily oil supplies come from the Gulf.
The West, led by Washington, has accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme while Tehran insists its intentions are peaceful.
The UN Security Council has given Iran until Friday to halt enrichment activity.
Earlier Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya said in his opening remarks at the forum's official opening that no decisions that "will have any direct or quick influence on international markets or price levels" are expected to be made at the conference, which ends Tuesday.
This was confirmed by his Iranian counterpart in comments to reporters.
"OPEC is producing as much as it can and there is not a physical lack of oil, so I don't think there will be a change," Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said.
He said Iran, which is the world's fourth and OPEC's second biggest crude producer, was close to its quota of around four million barrels a day.
"So OPEC is doing its best at the moment, stocks are improving, the production level is appropriate," he added.
In an interview with AFP on Saturday, Vaziri-Hamaneh said without naming the United States directly that countries who are trying to intimidate Iran over what it regards as its right to enrich uranium were the ones to blame for the rattled oil markets.
"Research in enrichment should not be the cause for that sort of tension, those who are escalating are the ones causing the tension," he said.
A senior US energy department official attending the Doha forum admitted that tension over Iran was affecting oil markets but that it was Iran's fault in initiating uranium enrichment in defiance of the international community.
"I think the world has spoken out about its feelings (over Iran) and unfortunately there is a reaction in the market," Karen Harbert, assistant secretary for policy and international affairs told AFP.
US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman was expected later on Sunday in Doha.
Nine of OPEC's ministers were already in Qatar with the Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi, considered the cartel's kingpin, expected on Monday, according to organisers.
OPEC President Edmund Daukoru, who is also Nigeria's oil minister, reiterated the cartel's view that market instability was linked to insufficient refining capacity among the world's main consumers like the United States, making it useless to pump more crude.
"Refiners cannot take it up so it's no use," he told reporters.
"The gravity of the situation requires some leadership from major consumers."
AFP 04 23 06 1657 GMT
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