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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: A. Geiche who wrote (49769)	8/24/1999 6:29:00 AM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95453

"This would effectively put nearly half the world's oil supply on autopilot" - The Guardian, August 24 Dan Atkinson Opec Shake-Up Could Reduce Haggling Over Quotas Oil Cartel President Yousfi Aims To Stabilise Price At Between Dollars 18 To Dollars 20 A Barrel Sweeping reforms of the 11-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) proposed by president Youssef Yousfi would streamline the oil cartel's bureaucracy and take much of the political haggling out of production quotas, it emerged yesterday. Most radical of all is the suggestion of an impartial mechanism to curb or boost supply to keep prices within an Dollars 18-Dollars 20 band. This would effectively put nearly half the world's oil supply on autopilot and take much of the wrangling and deal-making out of Opec's procedures. By making the cartel more flexible and its machinery more professional, the member states could capitalise strongly on the forecast growth of Opec's share of the market during the next 20 years. Already this year, a stringent Opec cuts package agreed in March has more than doubled the price per barrel, from below $10 in January to more than $21 yesterday. An Opec ministers' meeting in Vienna on September 22 will seek to build on this success. It emerged yesterday that Mr Yousfi had suggested the creation of a committee of experts that would meet just ahead of the ministers and agree proposals aimed at both holding on to this year's price gains and maintaining stability in future. Any potential quota increases would also be examined. More controversially, it is thought Mr Yousfi is floating the idea of a neutral mechanism that would take the politics out of routine quota adjustments as members followed pre-ordained cuts or increases to production whenever the price moved out of the Dollars 18-Dollars 20 band. It is thought Saudi Arabia, the pivotal Opec state and the world's largest oil producer, is backing the idea, as is Venezuela, castigated in the past for alleged quota cheating. The mechanism could take in so-called Nopec members Mexico, Norway, Russia and Oman, four countries outside the cartel but with a history of close Opec co-operation. It emerged yesterday that Saudi, Mexican and Venezuelan oil ministers are to meet in Caracas this week. Mark Redway of London broker Greg Middleton said there was a danger that Opec's committee of experts would become yet another tier in the cartel's cumbersome bureaucracy. He criticised the way in which Mr Yousfi and others within Opec seemed to be floating ideas whenever the fancy took them. 'A cartel should have only one voice,' he said.