OPEC to take action in March: Oil minister
OPEC to take action in March: Oil minister
DUBAI (AFP): OPEC will adopt measures to try to bolster oil prices at the 11-member cartel's next meeting on March 23, United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Obaid ibn Saif al-Nasseri pledged on Friday.
"OPEC has decided to give itself a better chance to consult and evaluate the oil market before meeting towards the end of March to take measures to improve the situation," he told the official WAM news agency.
The comments came after the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries failed Thursday in Vienna to agree any changes to current policy despite record low prices.
In Saudi Arabia, the newspaper Al-Jazirah blamed oil producing countries for failing to respect quotas.
"The answers lies quite simply in total respect for production quotas and for the (reduction) agreement recently reached between OPEC members and non-members," said the daily which carries government views.
"If they are not respected, market prices will continue to fall and producing countries," will suffer, it added.
Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah warned Thursday that the failure of the Vienna talks "will not lead to stability and improvement on the markets."
In London, oil prices fell to a record low Thursday of 10.85 dollars a barrel, but on Friday morning Brent for January delivery traded at US$11.05.
Al-Sabah told the official news agency KUNA that economic crisis in Asia, Russia and Latin America made it difficult to see any seasonal increase in demand.
"Oil ministers agreed (in Vienna) to maintain the current policy," he said, adding that "adequate measures" to end the slump would be taken in March.
The markets had been expecting as a minimum an extension of the output cuts of 2.6 million barrels a day agreed earlier this year.
The specialist Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) said last week that OPEC reduced output to 26.85 million barrels a day in October from 27.27 million in September, but this was still above OPEC's own forecast of demand for its oil next year of 26.5 million barrels a day.
The OPEC members are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.