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Venezuela Oil Minister : OPEC should implement an additional cut at its Dec meeting
Venezuela Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez
Petroleumworld
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 10 27 06
Venezuela Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Thursday that OPEC should implement an additional cut of 300,000 barrels a day of crude at its next meeting this December to maintain the OPEC average price at a minimum of $55 a barrel."At the next meeting we have to implement an additional cut," on top of a 1.2 million barrel a day cut that the group agreed upon at its most recent meeting in Doha, Ramirez told reporters at an oil refining event in Caracas.
Ramirez said to comply with the OPEC cut, Venezuela would take its oil cut from its heaviest, lowest-quality crude and will decrease 138,000 barrels a day, or 4.2% of domestic production, mainly from the extra heavy oil projects from Orinoco Faja These projects produce 630,000 barrels a day of extra heavy oil of 8-10 API, before it converts them in to 28-30 API crude.
Oil majors with stake in the Orinoco Faja projects with PDVSA as a partner, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Total, Chevron, BP, and Statoil already cut 50,000 of the 138,000 barrels a day and are notifying clients of the additional cuts, Ramirez said.
OPEC next meeting is to be held in Nigeria next December.
Petroleumworld 26 10 06
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