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Strategies & Market Trends : Galapagos Islands -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (37543)	4/22/2003 7:26:20 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Respond to of 57110

story.news.yahoo.com OPEC to call for respect of production quotas to counter oil price fall VIENNA (AFP) - OPEC (news - web sites), looking to cut production in order to keep oil prices from falling too far, is to call on its members to respect production quotas, an OPEC source said. The source said members of the 11-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would call at a meeting Thursday in Vienna for the cartel to hold to its current quota of 24.5 million barrels per day (bpd), which is currently being exceeded by some two million bpd. OPEC oil ministers began arriving in Vienna later Tuesday. Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Nuaimi, a key figure in OPEC, swept into his hotel without answering questions from waiting journalists. Analysts said deciding how output should be reduced, and by whom, could prove difficult. In London, reference Brent North Sea crude for June delivery fell five cents to 25.80 dollars a barrel. New York's benchmark light sweet crude contract for May slipped 20 cents to 30.67 dollars a barrel during early trading. Traders said that fluctuations in the US price were largely caused by technical factors associated with the expiry of the May contract on Tuesday. "The oil market is waiting to see what happens at the OPEC meeting later this week," said analyst Andrew Whittock at Williams de Broe. It remained uncertain what the cartel might decide on, said GNI trader Paul Goodhew. "People are kind of expecting a cut of production of around one (million) to 1.5 million barrels per day, but what OPEC actually gives us remains to be seen," he said. Over the weekend, OPEC president Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said that the group must act to curb a surplus of two million barrels a day on the market since the Iraq (news - web sites) war. However, a dealer in Singapore with a regional trading firm, commented: "They (OPEC) should not complain too much since oil prices have held at relatively high levels." Among the factors clouding the group's deliberations will be the continuing uncertainty over when Iraqi oil exports are most likely to resume and over how seriously the mystery virus SARS (news - web sites) will affect the already sluggish world economy. OPEC had announced in January an output increase, raising its combined output ceiling by 6.5 percent to 24.5 million bpd, to curb a surge in prices triggered by a strike in Venezuela and the threat of war in Iraq. Since then, OPEC members have produced over the quota as the price of oil soared up to 40 dollars per barrel. There is concern now that oil prices could collapse due to oversupply. A return to the quota "is the most likely scenario" to seek to adjust prices, the OPEC official said. OPEC seeks to have oil prices within a target range of 22-28 dollars per barrel. With Iraq's oil exports expected to begin flowing again following the US-led war to unseat the regime of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), OPEC has been anxious to avoid a plunge in global prices through oversupply. However, analysts said there were fresh concerns over supplies from Nigeria, where violence has flared following a disputed presidential election. Nigerian soldiers shot dead eight opposition supporters after coming under fire during an election-day protest at the weekend, a police spokesman told AFP on Tuesday. Last month around a third of all Nigeria's oil exports were halted due to civil and political unrest.