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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (29883)	3/13/1999 2:06:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116762

Kuwait to cut 140,000 bpd under wider oil accord 09:40 a.m. Mar 13, 1999 Eastern By Ashraf Fouad KUWAIT, March 13 (Reuters) - Kuwait said on Saturday it could cut its oil output by around 140,000 bpd as part of a wider producer accord to reduce supplies to world markets by a total 2.029 million barrels per day (bpd) as of April 1. ''We are considering a ballpark figure of around 140,000 barrels per day,'' Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah told Reuters of the cut from Kuwait's current output of 1.98 million bpd. ''Still the (cuts) figures are not final...But we are speaking about more than two million barrels per day. The total figure is 2.029 million bpd,'' the Kuwaiti minister later told reporters. Sheikh Saud, who assumed his post last March, has long been an advocate for cuts by fellow OPEC states and non-OPEC producers but he failed late last year to rally sufficient support for a third round of cuts. Kuwait made two oil output cuts totalling 225,000 bpd in 1998 under global reduction accords. Sheikh Saud said a dispute over Iran's baseline oil production level was no longer an issue. ''We have nothing to do with that issue, we have agreed on the division of the cuts and there is no dispute,'' added the minister on Saturday when asked if Iran had managed to negotiate a cuts deal in its favour. ''Do not create problems for us from nothing. We have agreed among ourselves on everything, on these arrangements at the meetings in Shayba and Amsterdam,'' he added. Sheikh Saud along with several of his Gulf Arab counterparts met in Shayba, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday to discuss the cuts deal before Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi flew to Amsterdam for talks with major OPEC members Iran, Algeria and Venezuela, and non-OPEC Mexico. OPEC is due to meet on March 23 in Vienna to finalise the cuts aimed at boosting oil prices which late last year hit 25-year lows. International benchmark Brent crude oil last traded in London on Friday 42 cents higher at $12.60 a barrel, having earlier risen to a near five-month high of $13.19. Sheikh Saud, who had last year launched the failed effort to raise prices to $17 a barrel for Brent, refused to speculate on prices if OPEC approved the cuts. ''We are now in a concensus process to secure the approval of all to achieve this figure (2.029 million bpd). This is the most important thing for us now,'' he said, stressing the need for full compliance when the reduction was implemented. The Saudi oil minister called the deal ''an excellent agreement'' which would erase the world's excess crude oil stocks by the end of June and raise prices to between $17 and $19. ''Compliance is fundamental for cuts to be effective. It must be good to absorb the (stored) reserves and I think there will be compliance,'' said his Kuwaiti counterpart. ((kuwait.newsroom+reuters.com, tel +965 240 8945, fax +965 241 2459)) Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.