AP, VIENNA
OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia suggested yesterday that a meeting of oil ministers of the 13-nation organization will decide to keep crude production steady, despite their concerns over rapidly falling prices.
With the Saudis accounting for about a third of OPEC’s output, their views are often adopted by ministerial meetings deciding on whether to boost, keep steady, or cut oil production.
Therefore, the comments by Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi suggested that the ministers would opt for the status quo.
“The market is fairly well balanced,” Naimi told reports on arrival to Vienna in the dawn hours of Tuesday.
“I think things are in balance, in a healthy position,” he said.
His comments appeared to rebut calls for a cutback from Iran, OPEC’s No. 2 producer and a traditional OPEC price hawk.
“We believe the market is oversupplied,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters on Monday.
Other OPEC ministers have been less strident in calling for a tightening of the oil spigots, despite a nearly 30 percent tumble in oil prices after they neared US$150 a barrel in July. OPEC nations account for two-thirds of the world’s known oil reserves, and about 40 percent of the world’s oil production, affording them considerable control over the global market.
Still, ahead of yesterday’s decision-making meeting, there was some sentiment for more production discipline aimed at reducing the overhang left by members producing above individual quotas.
“There is a glut in the market that warrants creating order,” said Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp.
Since crude surged to a record US$147.27 a barrel on July 11, it has tumbled by more than US$40, or more than 27 percent.
Also See: Oil prices are down again, but the rollercoaster may not be over
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