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To: Teddy who wrote (15752)	3/21/1998 1:07:00 AM
From: Czechsinthemail	Respond to of 95453

Looks like the weekend meeting is on: 3/20/98 Crude Oil Settles Flat; Oil-Price Talks To Be Held In Saudi Arabia NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Crude-oil futures settled little changed while petroleum-products futures finished mixed Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. After the market closed, people close to OPEC said officials from Venezuela, OPEC's biggest overproducer, were on their way to Saudi Arabia to discuss oil-production cuts. April crude oil added one penny to go off the board at $14.32 a barrel. May crude oil also added 1 cent to settle at $14.61 a barrel. Among oil products, April unleaded gasoline finished up 0.83 cent at 49.38 cents a gallon. April heating oil slipped 0.05 cent to settle at 40.70 cents a gallon. April natural gas added 4.3 cents to end at $2.343 per million BTUs. Venezuelan Oil Minister Erwin Arrieta and Luis Giusti, president of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela, are expected to meet with top Saudi oil officials Saturday, the people close to OPEC said. The two Venezuelan officials had been in Europe with Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera on official business and flew into Vienna Friday for a hastily arranged airport meeting with OPEC Secretary General Rilwanu Lukman. All indications are that Venezuela will call upon the Saudis to ease their attitude toward output cuts. Saudi Arabia has said it won't be OPEC's "swing producer" again, lowering its output to try to support prices. The kingdom has called upon OPEC's quota-busters - led by Venezuela - to cut their oversupply before Saudi Arabia considers any reduction in its output. The people close to OPEC said they expect Venezuela, which is producing about 800,000 barrels a day over its OPEC quotas of 2.583 million b/d, to plead financial hardship and refuse to cut production back to its quota. Venezuela has said it wouldn't cut "a single barrel" from its output and complained that OPEC's quota system is outdated. In recent days, Venezuelan officials have said they would be willing to cut their output if all OPEC and non-OPEC producers made similar cuts. Non-OPEC producers have in the past been reluctant to go along with OPEC efforts to cut output to try to boost prices, although Norway, Oman and Angola have offered limited support. Oil prices have fallen nearly 40% - and hit nine-year lows this week - since OPEC met in late November in Jakarta and boosted its output ceiling by 10% to 27.5 million b/d. Saudi Arabia, which pushed through the rise, saying it wanted its fair share of the market after not having a quota rise since 1993, has boosted its output to near its new 8.76 million b/d quota. But overproduction has boosted OPEC's output to around 28.7 million b/d to 28.8 million b/d, compared with second-quarter demand, which is expected to drop to below 25.5 million b/d.