DUBAI — OPEC may abandon the dollar for pricing oil and adopt the euro but any such switch will “take time”, OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Badri was quoted as saying by a weekly magazine.
A decline in the dollar has eroded oil exporters’ purchasing power, prompting some members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to call for a switch away from the US currency.
Badri’s remarks sent the dollar lower against the euro yesterday.
“Maybe we can price the oil in the euro,” the London-based Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) quoted Badri as saying in an interview. “It can be done, but it will take time.”
Reuters obtained an advance copy of the interview which will be published in the London-based magazine’s next issue. “Badri tells MEED ... that the producers’ organization may switch to the euro within a decade to combat the dollar’s decline,” the magazine said without providing a direct quote about the time frame.
“It took two world wars and more than 50 years for the dollar to become the dominant currency. Now we are seeing another strong currency coming into the (frame), which is the euro,” said Badri, who is Libyan.
Meanwhile, oil prices vaulted 4 percent yesterday — their biggest gain in nearly two months — amid supply snags in Nigeria and the North Sea and a looming cold spell in the huge US Northeast heating oil market. US crude jumped $3.53 to $91.64 a barrel by 1900 GMT, reversing most of the week’s losses that had been triggered by concern an economic slowdown would dent demand for fuel. London Brent gained $3.34 to $91.85.