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Kuwait ready to cut oil production: Energy minister
AFP
KUWAIT CITY
Petroleumworld.com 10 10 06Kuwait's energy minister said Monday that his country is willing to cut its production of oil to protect "market stability", shortly after OPEC's president proposed that crude output be slashed.
"We accept to cut production (of oil) depending on market needs, in order to safeguard the stability of the market," Sheikh Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah told reporters.
He said that ministers of the oil cartel are "studying a (possible) cut between 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) and one million bpd".
An OPEC spokesman told AFP that the cartel's president Edmund Dakoru had proposed to members that they should cut their production output by one million bpd but that no agreement had yet been reached.
The oil market has been watching for several days for any signs that OPEC might cut production to shore up prices which have fallen sharply recently, and news of the proposal to cut output as well as North Korea's announcement it had conducted a nuclear test, pushed up prices on Monday.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, rose 20 cents to close at 59.96 dollars a barrel. At one point, the contract hit 61.25 dollars.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for November delivery settled at 60.54 dollars a barrel, up 71 cents from Friday. That was off a high of 61.66.
The 11-member cartel has maintained an output quota of 28 million bpd since June 2005.
A cut in output is seen as aimed at supporting the price of oil on world markets, which has slumped by about 20 percent in recent weeks owing to easing supply concerns.
AFP 09 2026 GMT 10 06Copyright© 2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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