VIENNA, 4 September 2005 — The rapid rise in the price of oil following Hurricane Katrina has prompted OPEC to consider “further measures” to stabilize the market, the organization said late Friday in Vienna.
OPEC President Ahmed Fahd Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, who is also Kuwait’s oil minister, has taken up consultation with the oil ministers of other member countries. OPEC members with free capacity already have offered to help avert a fuel crisis in the United States where some stations have run out of supply.
Katrina forced the closure of several oil platforms and production facilities along the Gulf of Mexico, causing a spike in the price of oil. It reached a record high of $71.85 earlier last week, falling to $67.57 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday.
Ahmed also said he was in contact with the US authorities and the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Paris-based IEA agreed to release 2 million barrels a day of crude from reserves for an initial 30 days. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had already announced plans to increase crude oil production another 500,000 barrels per day in October. President George W. Bush said Thursday that the US would release oil from its own strategic reserves. He also urged Americans to conserve fuel.
Meanwhile, Japan said yesterday it would tap its strategic oil reserves for the first time in 14 years to cope with US supply disruptions in the aftermath of Katrina. Japan’s Trade Ministry said Tokyo’s oil release would amount to 12 percent of the total 60 million barrels, and that the government planned to free the oil reserves as soon as possible.
