AUSTRIA: OPEC LIKELY TO AGREE TO A DEAL

Record ID: 648245

  • Title: AUSTRIA: OPEC LIKELY TO AGREE TO A DEAL
  • Date: 24th October 2005
  • Summary: (BN12) VIENNA, AUSTRIA (SEPTEMBER 19, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. EXTERIOR OF OPEC BUILDING/ SECURITY 2. VARIOUS ARRIVALS 3. VARIOUS OF MINISTERS AROUND CONFERENCE TABLE 4. WIDE OF CONFERENCE TABLE 5. GROUPS OF REPORTERS TALKING TO MINISTERS 6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) LIBYAN OIL MINISTER FATHI HAMED BEN SHATWAN SAYING: "As you know there are two options. One of them is a rise in the ceiling of 500,000 (barrels a day) and the other one is keeping the ceiling as it is, but offering two million barrels a day for the consumers if they need it" 7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) QATARI OIL MINISTER ABDULLAH AL-ATTIYAH SAYING "I'm not in favour of talking on future scenarios. My favourite is to send a very strong message to our consumers that we are doing all our best. The problem, I am still saying before and before, I believe there is no shortage of crude oil. The problem is the limitation of the refinery, some refinery in United States, you know capacity more than 800,000 barrels (a day damaged because of Hurricane Katrina), and it will take several months. We saw when they released the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) thirty million, they only consumed 11 million, so this shows that not a problem with crude oil, the problem is with oil refineries" 8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES OIL MINISTER MOHAMED BIN DHAEN AL HAMLI SAYING "We are happy to add more oil to the market if the market needs oil. So we have already extra oil. We are looking at a number of proposals and we will have to look at them and decide, but not yet, we have not made up our minds yet" 9. WIDE OF CONFERENCE TABLE 10. EXTERIOR OPEC HEADQUARTERS 3.14 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 8th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VIENNA, AUSTRIA
  • Country: Austria
  • Reuters ID: LVA767PJHJF45AMHPOK67C9E5QXW
  • Story Text: OPEC likely to agree deal on Tuesday.



    OPEC looks set to agree a deal in Vienna on Tuesday
    (September 20, 2005) vowing to make available two million barrels
    per day (bpd) of spare capacity when required by world
    markets.

    But official output quotas for 10 member countries
    would be kept unchanged at a ceiling of 28 million bpd.

    Analysts said OPEC appeared to be trying to tread a
    fine line between reassuring consumer countries that spare
    capacity is readily available, without forcing unnecessary
    supply on to the market.

    Europe, rather than the United States, has led calls
    for more oil from OPEC, even though there appears to be no
    way it can sell more to refiners.

    The call coincided with the conclusion by OPEC of a
    long-term strategy plan that seeks to provide transparency
    about how it operates.

    OPEC had considered the option of lifting output by
    500,000 bpd to 28.5 million with a further 500,000 bpd
    increase at the discretion of the group's president.

    But several ministers said they were opposed to higher
    output quotas when global refining capacity is at full
    stretch and unable to process more crude. OPEC production,
    including two million bpd from Iraq, is already at a
    25-year high of more than 30 million bpd and crude
    inventories are ample.

    Hurrican Katrina's assault on U.S. Gulf refineries has
    left nearly 900,000 barrels a day, about a tenth of U.S.

    refining plant, offline in the world's biggest consumer.

    Washington
    found buyers for only 11 million barrels of
    the 30 million it offered from national emergency crude
    reserves after Katrina because refineries could not use the
    oil.

    At the OPEC meeting in Vienna on Monday, Libyan Oil
    Minister Fathi Hamed Ben Shatwan confirmed the proposals.

    "As you know there are two options. One of them is a
    rise in the ceiling of 500,000 (barrels a day) and the
    other one is keeping the ceiling as it is, but offering two
    million barrels a day for the consumers if they need it,"
    he said.

    The Oil Minister of Qatar, Abdullah al-Attiyah, said:
    "I'm not in favour of talking on future scenarios. My
    favourite is to send a very strong message to our consumers
    that we are doing all our best. The problem, I am still
    saying before and before, I believe there is no shortage of
    crude oil. The problem is the limitation of the refinery,
    some refinery in United States, you know capacity more than
    800,000 barrels (a day damaged because of Hurricane
    Katrina), and it will take several months. We saw when they
    released the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) 30 million,
    they only consumed 11 million, so this shows that not a
    problem with crude oil, the problem is with oil
    refineries," said Attiyah.

    United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohamed bin Dhaen al
    Hamli said: "We are happy to add more oil to the market if
    the market needs oil. So we have already extra oil. We are
    looking at a number of proposals and we will have to look
    at them and decide, but not yet, we have not made up our
    minds yet."

  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register