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

To: BigBull who wrote (62948)	3/26/2000 1:17:00 PM
From: Post_Patrol	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 95453

Big Bull..."think again" OPEC Considering Output Boost of About 1.7 Million Barrels OPEC Considering Output Boost of About 1.7 Million Barrels Vienna, March 26 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC is considering boosting its crude oil output quotas by about 1.7 million barrels a day starting April 1, Kuwaiti and Algerian oil officials said. OPEC is considering increasing quotas by between 1.5 million and 1.7 million barrels a day, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser Al-Sabah said. An Algerian oil ministry official said Arab oil producers in the Persian Gulf have proposed quotas of 1.7 million barrels more than current ones. The 11 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meet tomorrow in Vienna to decide output ceilings. The U.S. and the European Union have asked OPEC to increase production to bring down prices and reduce the threat of inflation. ``We support the increase, but we have not yet agreed on the extent of the increase,' Al-Sabah said. Kuwait has previously expressed support for maintaining current quotas. ``We are nearing a consensus,' Venezuelan Oil Minister Ali Rodriguez said. The expected increase would fall short of the 2.3 million barrels a day of extra supply that the International Energy Agency says would be necessary to rebuild worldwide stockpiles. OPEC ministers are also discussing when to consider adjusting their quotas again. The group, which meets twice a year, would normally review output limits at its next scheduled meeting in September. Still, some OPEC members want the group to consider adjusting production before then. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh called on OPEC to set output policy for three months instead of six, in comments to State-owned Tehran Radio before departing for Vienna this morning. Algeria won't stand in the way of a production increase if that's what the rest of OPEC wants, Algerian Oil Minister Chekib Khalil said on arriving in Vienna yesterday, though he added that he is ``worried about demand going down.' Iran Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is now in the only large OPEC country to maintain opposition to an increase in the group's production quota in the second quarter. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh reiterated the country's position before departing for Vienna this morning. The U.S. administration has been urging oil producers for greater supplies. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has met officials from some OPEC countries in the past two months and the U.S. has made moves to soften the position of some other members. In the last two weeks, the U.S. has said it was studying lifting a ban on Americans' travel to Libya, abolished restrictions on imports of pistachios and carpets from Iran backed a doubling of the money Iraq is allowed to spend on parts for its oil industry. Iraq sells oil through a United Nations program that uses the revenue for humanitarian supplies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ¸ Copyright 2000, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.