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Chavez wants a minimum floor price of $50 per barrel
AFP/Juan Barreto
President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez speaks during a special address to the OPEC members, in the framework of the 141st Extraordinary Meeting of the OPEC Conference, at the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum of Venezuela headquarters in Caracas.By Elio Ohep
Petroleumworld
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 06 02 06President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez proposed on Thursday, a minimum floor price of $50 and an unlimited ceiling per barrel during a special address to the OPEC members, in the framework of the 141st Extraordinary Meeting of the OPEC Conference, at the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum of Venezuela headquarters in Caracas.
"We had price bands for almost three years but that went down in history," he said, talk about the the former price band of $22-$28 a barrel that OPEC had two years ago. "If we talked about a band nowadays, the lower level would be $50 and the ceiling would be infinity."
Chavez reminded the audience that Venezuela championed the idea of keeping oil prices high within OPEC and that he lead the rebirth of the organization in the late 90's.
OPEC was "at death's door and one of the assassins was Venezuela" which wanted to quit the cartel and was not respecting its output quota, he recalled.
The OPEC resurgence came at the venezuela's sponsor summit of OPEC leaders in Caracas in 2000, he added.
On today's OPEC decision on prices, Chavez said that even that OPEC feels a that a cut is not necessary, but he feels that it is justified.
"OPEC at this moment feels that production does not need to be increased. The different indicators will have to continue to be evaluated," However, we feels that there too much oil on the market. Chavez said
"we have offered our oil to quench the thirst of the developed countries, while our peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America stagnate in under-development, misery and backwardness," he added.
Chavez's remarks added a political side to a meeting that appeared to have decided earlier in keeping the production stable.
Qatar's oil minister said Thursday, prior to the OPEV's ministers meeting that members reached an informal agreement Thursday not to alter current crude output.
The Venezuelan President also said that the OPEC is evaluating the use of the euro as the crude quoting currency, in view oft he imminent weakening of the dollar.
“This is a weakening economy and the dollar is losing ground in the world with regard to currencies like the euro,” he said.Finally, President Chávez praised the wake up of the Latin American peoples who “are starting to free themselves from imperialist domination and retaking sovereign control of their natural resources”.
In this respect, he said, be it today, tomorrow or after tomorrow, governments will continue to come that will decide to retake sovereign control of their energy resources and may be interested in joining the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries”.
- Elio Ohep, editor@petroleumworld.com, 58 412 996 3730, Caracas.Petroleumworld 01 2100 GMT 06 06
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