|
|
Change Your Life! |
OPEC’s oil make
Saudi Arabia opaque |
|
News |
July 5, 2000
ASWAN (AP) - Saudi Arabia intends to put 500,000 additional barrels of oil on the market every day starting immediately to try to get soaring prices down to dlrs 25 a barrel, an official from an OPEC delegation said Monday.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Saudis were acting because they were the only producers with enough excess capacity to increase production. He also said the Saudis would move to decrease production if prices fell below dlrs 25. Prices are now hovering around dlrs 30 a barrel and prices at the gas pump are high in turn.
Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are the only other OPEC members with enough capacity to quickly put out significant additional amounts of crude.
In Washington, a Saudi government official confirmed the country's intention to sell additional oil until prices fell.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the government in Riyadh was expected to make an announcement.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and exporter, had reportedly been trying to persuade other producers to raise exports above and beyond the additional 708,000 daily barrels agreed to at a meeting in Vienna last month of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The 708,000-barrel increase started last Saturday, but oil prices did not go down.
Industry analysts reacted with skepticism to the possibility the Saudis would increase production unilaterally.
"It sounds too desperate for the Saudis. They wouldn't want to be seen to act ... without some of the others coming along with them," said Leo Drollas, chief economist of the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies.
Jeremy Elden of Lehman Brothers in London said it would seem "slightly odd" for the Saudis to increase production on their own. Nonetheless, Elden suggested that the increase would bring prices down.
A Saudi Oil Ministry official reached in the Saudi capital late Monday said he had not heard of his country moving unilaterally to raise production. But considering the state of the market, it was "not out of the question," the Saudi official said on condition of anonymity.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told his country's official news agency in comments published Monday that the Saudis were seeking "in any way we can to bring the prices down from their current level to the target level of dlrs 25 per barrel .... If the price does not decrease, Saudi Arabia, in consultation with other producers, will increase production by 500,000 barrels a day within the next few days."
Saudi Arabia has excess production capacity of 2.3 million barrels per day that can be put on the market in a short period of time if necessary, an OPEC official had said on condition of anonymity earlier this week. As of July the kingdom's quota is 8.25 million barrels per day.
The Saudi economy is 70 percent dependent on oil revenues. Saudi officials fear they will be hurt in the long run if prices remain high. They need stable prices to plan spending, and high prices could reduce demand and spur consumers to turn to alternative fuels.
Pressure is building in the United States, the world's largest oil consumer and a close Saudi ally, for relief from sharply higher gasoline prices.
Earlier Monday, a Qatari oil official said OPEC was considering a production increase of even more than 500,000 barrels a day if its basket price of crude sharply exceeds dlrs 28.
Previously, officials had said OPEC members were considering an increase of 500,000 barrels a day if the OPEC basket price topped dlrs 28 for 20 consecutive trading days.
On June 20, the OPEC basket price broke above dlrs 28 per barrel and has held above that level since - 14 days - in a range of between dlrs 28.97-dlrs 30.10, according to OPEC.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude for August delivery - which trades at roughly dlrs 2 higher than the OPEC crude basket - closed Friday at dlrs 32.50 a barrel. Trading was closed Monday for the Independence Day holiday weekend.
August contracts of North Sea Brent crude rallied by 48 cents from Friday's close to dlrs 31.05 per barrel in late trading on the International Petroleum Exchange in London on Monday.
OPEC oil ministers are set to meet in Vienna Sept. 10. They had not been expected to take decisions on oil output before then.
OPEC members are Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Venezuela and Indonesia.
Iraq also is a member but has not participated in recent OPEC production pacts. |