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

To: russet who wrote (71549)	8/23/2000 11:28:07 PM
From: pz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Clinton is trying to spoil our party Wednesday August 23 5:02 PM ET Clinton to Push OPEC to Lower Oil Prices By Tom Doggett WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton said Wednesday that oil prices were too high and that they needed to drop to sustain economic growth, adding that he would discuss OPEC output with members of the oil cartel. Speaking to reporters, Clinton said he would bring up the issue of OPEC oil output with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo during his visit to the African nation this weekend. Nigeria is a member of OPEC and the cartel meets in Vienna on September 10 to discuss its new production levels. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who has said the world market needs more oil supplies and has asked OPEC to consider increasing production, will travel with Clinton on his state visit to Nigeria. Clinton said one of the problems in getting additional oil from OPEC was figuring out which cartel members have the capacity to pump more oil. ``We have to look where there is excess capacity...part of this is a question of whether the OPEC nations can increase their production,'' he said. Clinton also said oil prices needed to drop to a range in the low to mid-20-dollars per barrel. Tight petroleum supplies have pushed U.S. crude prices above $30 a barrel and retail gasoline prices have risen after falling eight weeks in a row. Oil settled at $32.02 a barrel, up 80 cents, in New York futures trading on Wednesday. U.S. oil inventories remain close to their lowest in 24 years, with both the Energy Department and the American Petroleum Institute reporting that U.S. oil stocks dropped by more than 4 million barrels over the last week. Strong economic growth in the United States and the rest of the world has increased demand for oil and raised prices, Clinton said. ``It's putting more pressure on the oil supplies that are available,'' he said. Clinton said he would argue to the OPEC nations that if the price of oil remains too high, it will cause recession in other countries, who would then buy less of the cartel's crude. Clinton said he would do what he could to keep oil prices ''moderate'' and that OPEC nations would be ``much better off'' with oil prices below the current level of $32 a barrel. ``It needs to be, I think, in the low $20s somewhere,'' Clinton said. ``I think that the low to mid $20s is the more sustainable rate.'' Shortly after Clinton made his comments, Obasanjo said high crude prices were bad for both oil consuming and producing nations, and OPEC should move to moderate prices. ``Oil producers should try to work out a medium (price),'' he told a news conference in London. OPEC Secretary-General Rilwanu Lukman said the cartel could pump more oil if necessary but would not intervene every time prices rose. ``We might pump more if there is a need to do so, based on the quotas allocated to member states,'' the London-based Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat quoted Lukman as saying in an interview published on Wednesday. In June, OPEC agreed to raise output by 708,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 25.4 million bpd, but the extra oil failed to cool overheating prices.