Most OPEC members back quota increase
JAKARTA (JP): The majority of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member countries support the proposal to increase output quotas, Minister of Mines and Energy I.B. Sudjana told reporters yesterday.
Sudjana said he believed OPEC ministers would reach a compromise on the proposed quota increase during the current OPEC Ministerial Conference at Dharmawangsa Hotel, South Jakarta.
"All the delegates are intensively searching for a compromise through bilateral talks," Sudjana said.
The 103rd Conference, which opened yesterday and will last until Monday, also chose yesterday Sudjana as OPEC's new president to replace Qatar's Minister of Energy and Industry Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah for six months until the next conference.
Sudjana refused to name the member countries which remained opposed to the quota increase.
Sudjana also refused to reveal Indonesia's position over the quota increase but he said Indonesia had the capacity to raise production if OPEC agreed to increase its quota.
The state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina earlier said Indonesia was able to raise its oil production to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), from its current quota of 1.33 million bpd.
The OPEC quota stands at 25.033 million bpd, compared with the world's demand of 73.48 million bpd.
OPEC groups Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Iran and Nigeria.
The quota issue was first raised by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, which proposed to increase the OPEC quota to capitalize on the projected increase in the world's oil demand next year.
However, in the beginning most member countries disagreed with the proposal for fear that the quota increase would dampen oil prices.
In a related development, OPEC governor for Indonesia Purnomo Yusgiantoro said yesterday OPEC's Ministerial Monitoring Sub- Committee (MMSC), which met from Tuesday to yesterday afternoon to prepare for the OPEC Ministerial Conference, found that many OPEC members had produced more than their quota but that the market could absorb the overproduction.
He said the market's ability to absorb the overproduction could be seen from stable oil prices which ranged between US$18.5 and $19 per barrel from April to November this year.
The subcommittee, which is made up of Iran, Indonesia and Nigeria, is in charge of monitoring the compliance of member countries with their existing quotas.
The subcommittee compares the primary data provided by each member country with the secondary data from six oil production monitoring agencies including the Energy Information Agency and the International Energy Agency.
Purnomo said both the primary and secondary sources provided different figures on OPEC production and the growth of the world's oil demand.
According to the secondary data, the world's demand for OPEC oil would stand between 27 million bpd and 27.5 million bpd next year while the OPEC secretariat general put the demand at 26.5 million bpd, Purnomo said. (jsk)
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