KUWAIT CITY, 26 June 2005 — OPEC’s president said yesterday he had contacted the Saudi and Qatari oil ministers as part of consultations with the grouping’s members to study measures to calm soaring oil prices.
Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahd Al-Sabah told reporters he had started contacts on Friday with his Saudi and Qatari counterparts, Ali Al-Naimi and Abdullah ibn Hamad Al-Attiyah. “On Friday, I contacted Attiyah and Naimi,” said Sabah. “I think we have to wait for a while to see exactly what the behavior of the prices is.”
On Monday, Sabah had announced that he would hold talks with other cartel members on hiking output by 500,000 barrels per day if prices stayed high over the following four days.
He had also said that all OPEC members are prepared to boost supplies if needed, including Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer, which was ready to increase production above its 9.5 million bpd.
On Saturday, Sabah, who did not wish to give a timeframe for the ongoing consultations, said “we have to consult everybody and to (monitor) exactly” the price fluctuations before taking the decision to raise output.
Sabah noted previous “up and down” movements in oil prices which had also approached the $60 mark after an OPEC meeting in the Iranian city of Isfahan on March 16, before falling to lower levels.
“Even after Isfahan, it (prices) approached $60, but after that, it came back to the normal situation to $50-51 for Brent crude,” he said.
Meanwhile, Asia and Europe’s finance ministers are planning to call for stable oil prices in the face of surging oil costs which threaten global economic growth, delegates to a ministers’ meeting said yesterday.
With world oil prices climbing to a new closing high Friday, the issue topped the agenda of discussions at the annual Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of finance ministers in this northern Chinese city.
“What we are calling for is one, stable oil prices,” Mitja Mavko, an official of the Slovenian Finance Ministry, told reporters. “We (also) want to avoid volatility.”
Oil producing countries will be urged to increase production levels in a final communique to be issued after the meeting today, Mavko said. An official from Slovakia said delegates backed the move. “The only way to achieve (lower oil prices) is to increase production. I think they should,” said Rastislav Sulla, counselor with the embassy of Slovakia.
