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OPEC Shows Firm Stand on Oil Production
VIENNA, July 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - OPEC oil ministers were to meet in Vienna Tuesday for talks expected to maintain the cartel's production at current levels, as markets braced for a possible return of Iraqi crude into the world's energy pipeline.
OPEC oil ministers agreed that they will keep production levels unchanged, the cartel's president Chakib Khelil said ahead of the meeting.
"There is a consensus," he told reporters. "No increase in production," he said, when asked what the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting would decide.
Khelil said the OPEC ministers gathered in Vienna had not discussed the possibility of a production cut if Iraq resumed its exports after a plan to modify UN sanctions against it was shelved, AFP News Agency reported.
"We believe very strongly there is no reason to increase production," said Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al Attiyah.
"If we see that the market needs to cut production to balance demand and supply, then why not?" he added.
The shelve decision came after the Security Council failed to reach agreement among all 15 member states over a draft resolution being pushed by Britain and the United States.
Russia, who rejected the applying of "Smart Sanctions", said it would veto the plan, which was vehemently opposed by the Iraqi government.
But the threat of those changes receded Monday after Britain, which has pushed for so-called "smart sanctions" along with the U.S. dropped plans to force a vote in the U.N. Security Council by a self-imposed Tuesday, July 3, deadline.
Crude prices dipped on the announcement, with benchmark Brent in London falling over 60 cents, while in New York Monday light sweet crude lost 30 cents a barrel to 25.95 dollars.
In protest at the U.S.-British proposal for so-called "smart" sanctions, Iraq June 4 cut its exports for one month of more than two million barrels of oil per day through the U.N. program.
The U.S.-U.K. plan is claimed to be part of the oil-for-food scheme, which supposedly allows Baghdad to sell oil in order to buy basic goods for sanctions-hit Iraqi people.
The withdrawal of Baghdad's 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) exports -- five percent of world production -- from world markets has failed to spark a feared surge in prices.
The OPEC ministers are expected to gather for an informal meeting at a Vienna hotel around 2:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), ahead of the formal session later in the day.
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