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To: Ken98 who wrote (14028)	8/27/2000 8:21:59 PM
From: Ken98	Respond to of 436258

<<Washington Chases Oil 0100 GMT, 000826 U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson will embark on a rather scenic trip at the end of the month, taking in locales as diverse as Nigeria, Kazakstan and the Russian Far East. While part of his trip will focus on encouraging Nigeria to immediately boost its oil production, the rest of the trip has a longer-term goal – increasing the amount of available petroleum in the years ahead. In doing so Richardson seeks lower oil prices, but at the cost of strengthening Russia’s hand over the Caspian region and global energy markets. The first stop on Richardson’s itinerary, Nigeria, is no surprise. He is traveling with President Clinton on his Africa tour and will certainly try to convince Nigeria to up its oil production beyond its 2.091 million barrels per day (bpd) OPEC quota. However, it’s doubtful that Nigeria’s government could even if it wanted to. Years of neglect have left its oil sector in disrepair. The 2.091 figure is actually a historical high for Nigeria. Which leads to the other part of Richardson’s visit: establishing new production capacity. Nigeria is working with a number of European firms (TotalFinaElf, Shell, ENI, Agip and Statoil) and American firms (Chevron, ExxonMobil and Texaco) to develop new offshore fields. If these projects reach fruition, Nigeria’s oil-pumping capacity will increase by about 1.2 million bpd over the next four years. But with global oil demand at more than 75 million bpd and rising, Nigeria represents a drop in the bucket. That is why the next leg of Richardson’s trip will take him to Kazakstan and Russia. While both are producing at their maximum capacities of 0.5 million and 5.9 million, respectively, both have significantly larger reserves than Nigeria, granting them much greater potential for expanded production. Furthermore, since neither Kazakstan nor Russia is an OPEC member, both tend to produce oil at maximum capacity and ignore any OPEC-inspired quota system. Saudi Arabia, often friendly to U.S. overtures, controls the quota system.>> stratfor.com