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To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (40557)	3/22/1999 7:49:00 AM
From: Captain James T. Kirk	Respond to of 95453

March 22 6:16 AM ET OPEC Confident New Pact Will End Oil Glut By Michael Georgy VIENNA (Reuters) - OPEC ministers Monday were gathering to endorse tough new supply limits they appear confident will finally end a year-long oil glut. The ministers said they would quickly sign off at Tuesday's conference on prearranged output curbs aimed at lifting oil prices from the lowest levels in two decades. Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' members said there were no last minute snags to upset the accord removing seven percent, just over 1.7 million barrels daily, from cartel exports. ''We are finished, it is all done,'' said Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser al-Sabah. Smiling and relaxed, ministers chatted with journalists in hotel lobbies -- in stark contrast to the stony silence which met reporters' queries at the end of a bad-tempered OPEC conference last November. ''There will be no hitches. We are here to just sign it and go,'' said a Gulf official. The deal, negotiated by five key producers in The Hague on March 12, will increase OPEC's oil cuts by 1.717 million barrels per day (bpd) on top of curbs imposed last year. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said new restrictions for 10 OPEC members would stay in force for one year from April 1. It means OPEC will have removed more than four million bpd from the world oil market in a year, a 16 percent output cut. OPEC action last year had proved too little too late to tackle the towering petroleum stockpile exacerbated by failing Asian demand, sending oil prices crashing below $10 a barrel. The cartel, in control of 55 percent of world oil trade, saw petroleum export revenues slump 30 percent, losing $50 billion. This time OPEC is confident it has resolved the issues that ruined last year's efforts at market intervention. Ministers insist there will be no repeat in 1999 of the sloppy adherence by some countries with official output limits. ''There are no fears this time about compliance,'' a Gulf official who is familiar with Saudi policy said Sunday. ''Every country is willing to comply fully. They have seen the consequences when they do otherwise.'' A settlement two weeks ago between Saudi Arabia and Iran of a squabble which had blocked earlier discussion of new oil cuts helped pave the way for the Hague pact. Ministers are keen to restore the $18 oil price they were familiar with before their cartel allowed world supplies to outstrip slowing demand growth. ''The idea is $17-$19 Brent,'' said a Gulf official in Vienna. ''By the third quarter you will see it around that level. Prices will rise when the market feels the cuts.'' Oil prices since the Hague pact have risen sharply but still remain little better than last year's $13.30 average for Brent -- a 22-year low. Brent Monday traded up 10 cents at $13.55. Non-OPEC Mexico, Norway and Oman have promised their cooperation with OPEC and will remove a combined 286,000 bpd. In Moscow, a spokesman for Russian Energy Minister Sergei Generalov, due in Vienna Monday, said Russia will pledge to lower exports by 100,000 bpd during the second quarter of 1999. Tuesday's deal is set to reduce OPEC production, excluding sanctions-bound Iraq, to 22.976 million bpd from 24.692 million last July and 27.289 million a year ago. Iraq's Amir Mohammad Rasheed told reporters in Vienna his country's oil exports might rise a little this year but would not match the big jump of 1998 which offset a sizeable portion of OPEC's reductions. Oil consuming countries remain comfortably protected for now by a global stock excess estimated as high as 500 million barrels in a world market that uses 75 million barrels daily.