After pumping oil at close to full capacity for several months in a bid to bring prices down from record levels, OPEC ministers said on Thursday that they were considering curbing output and taking some oil off the market to prevent a price slump.
While oil prices in New York are still up 30 percent this year, they have dropped by nearly a quarter since touching US$55.67 a barrel in late October. On Thursday, light sweet crude for delivery in January rose US$0.59 to US$42.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange as oil traders reacted to the possibility of a production cut.
Benchmark light, sweet crude for January delivery traded at US$42.30 per barrel mid-afternoon on Friday in Asia on the New York Mercantile Exchange in electronic trade, down US$0.23 from its overnight closing price.
Traders were awaiting the OPEC meeting yesterday in Cairo, Egypt, which they fear could lead to slashes in production and worries over distillate supplies, which include heating oil, if the Northern Hemisphere winter is colder than expected.
"Some members -- Iran, Kuwait and Venezuela -- have been quite vocal about their desire to return to official quotas, which would effectively reduce OPEC output by 1 million barrels per day," said New York-based analyst George Orwel in an Energyintel research note.
OPEC is now producing at its highest rate in 25 years to meet record demand. But as consumption growth is expected to slow next year, OPEC will seek to prevent an oversupply of oil in the market as well as anticipate a seasonal decline in the second quarter.
The recent drop in prices was expected, said Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli, the oil minister from the United Arab Emirates, "but the speed of the decline was a surprise."
Over the last four years, it has been OPEC's policy to act pre-emptively to keep its benchmark price around US$25 a barrel, but it now wants to defend higher prices, around US$35 a barrel, analysts said. The benchmark price OPEC uses stood at US$33.78 a barrel on Wednesday.
OPEC members now pump about 28 million barrels a day, a million barrels above their quota of 27 million barrels. Curbing the oversupply, in effect, would mean that members would stick closer to OPEC's self-imposed ceiling.
Including oil from Iraq, which is a member but has not been assigned a production quota since the 1990s, the group's output is about 30 million barrels a day, a level not reached since 1979.
The strongest call for a cut in production came from Kuwait's oil minister, Sheik Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah.
"We have to cut off all our overproduction," the sheik said, suggesting production cuts of a million barrels a day or more.
Representatives of Venezuela, Qatar, Libya and the United Arab Emirates also said they favored reducing oil production to the level of OPEC's official quota.
The exact extent of the production cut is uncertain because Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil-exporting country and OPEC's most powerful member, has yet to show its hand. OPEC production decisions take about two months to affect the physical oil market.
Whatever the size of the cut, it will take effect Jan. 1, said a delegate from a gulf member of OPEC who declined to be identified. He suggested that OPEC would call for an emergency meeting at the beginning of February to fine-tune its action. OPEC, which accounts for a third of the world's oil production and half of global exports, is next scheduled to meet in March in Iran.
While OPEC is concerned there is too much oil on the market, the US Energy Department said OPEC should stick to its current production level to help build global crude inventories.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite