RIYADH, 19 November 2007 — OPEC states agreed their finance ministers would meet before Dec. 5 to discuss the sliding dollar’s impact on their economies after Iran and Venezuela recommended pricing oil against a currency basket.
The ministers would meet before the next gathering of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ energy ministers in the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi, Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabor told Reuters yesterday.
OPEC Secretary General Abdullah El-Badri confirmed the talks would take place before the Abu Dhabi meeting on Dec. 5.
OPEC excluded any reference to the tumbling dollar in its communique from a Riyadh summit, which ended on Sunday, voting down a proposal by Venezuela and Iran to highlight concerns about the currency’s impact on oil producers’ economies.
Jabor said the two countries also proposed OPEC stop pricing oil in the dollar, which tumbled to record lows on global markets this month.
“There was a proposal from Iran and Venezuela to have a basket of currencies for the pricing of OPEC oil. But a consensus could not be reached,” he said.
“Because the final communique was already drafted, there was an agreement that OPEC finance ministers hold a meeting before the oil meeting in the UAE in December to discuss economic issues including the dollar’s exchange rate,” Jabor said.
Pricing oil against a currency basket was “not specifically on the agenda” of the finance minister’s meeting, he said.
Ecuador, which rejoined the cartel at the Riyadh summit after 15 years, backed Venezuela’s and Iran’s push to have their concerns about the dollar included in the summit communique, Jabor said.
