OPEC ready to trim production

OPEC is ready to cut production to keep prices in its target range of $22-$28 a barrel, OPEC ministers said on arriving for a meeting yesterday in Vienna.

"We will make sure we keep the market where it is in the band," Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Mr Ali al-Nuaimi, told journalists. "We are concerned if we don't take some steps that an oil glut may form in two, three months," he said.

Qatar oil minister Mr Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, who is the OPEC president, said he thought there was a surplus on the world market of more than two million barrels per day (bpd).

He said the OPEC ministers would "discuss all scenarios" and that all options were open.

Venezuela's oil minister, Mr Rafael Ramirez, said OPEC would "talk about the discipline of production", referring to members' current quota-busting output.

It was not clear if OPEC would take any decisions today. An OPEC source said the meeting was being labelled a "consultative" one. The ministers "don't want to be under pressure to take any decision" and could postpone a decision until a regular meeting scheduled for June, the source said.

The source had said on Tuesday that the cartel was looking to cut production in order to keep oil prices from falling too far and would call on its members to respect the group's 24.5 million bpd overall production quota, which is currently being exceeded by some two million bpd.

Oil prices tumbled yesterday on news of a big rise in US crude oil stocks. The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for June delivery slid $1.11 per barrel to $24.35 in New York.

In London, Commerzbank analyst Mr Jon Rigby said traders were trying to gauge what would be decided at the OPEC meeting.

Mr Al-Attiyah hoped that Iraq would, after 10 years of not taking part in OPEC, "create a new government organised by the United Nations" and "come back happily to play their own role" in the cartel.

He said he was "not afraid" about Iraq producing too much oil.

 - (AFP)