Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil prices are in “the right range” and there is no need to reduce inventories, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said ahead of an OPEC meeting scheduled for later this month.
“Inventories are coming down, the price is perfect, and all investors, consumers, producers -- they’re all very happy,” Al-Naimi said today in Cairo, where Arab oil ministers are holding an annual meeting.
Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil said it will be “some time” before oil production will have to increase. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, cut crude production last year as the global recession curtailed demand.
Oil prices have risen 69 percent this year, recovering from a low of $32.40 a barrel in December 2008. OPEC announced that month a record production cut as demand around the world crumpled, and kept quotas unchanged at three subsequent meetings this year.
As OPEC prepares for the Dec. 22 meeting in the Angolan capital Luanda, signs of a global economic recovery are buoying prices around the $75 mark deemed by many members and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest producer, as satisfactory. Crude closed at $75.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday.
‘Right Range’
“The market is stable right now, volatility is at minimum, everybody is happy with the price, it is in the right range,” al-Naimi said. “There is nothing to worry about.”
Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah said today in Cairo he expects OPEC members will agree to leave oil production quotas unchanged and said he was “comfortable” with oil prices of $70 to $80 a barrel. Officials from Algeria, Libya and Qatar, speaking today and yesterday, also said OPEC should maintain current production targets when it meets in Luanda.
Al-Naimi, Khelil and Sheikh Ahmed are in Cairo today to attend an annual meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, which brings together officials from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. Seven OAPEC members are also members of OPEC, accounting for about two- thirds of OPEC’s supply.
The 11 countries with OPEC production quotas pumped 26.5 million barrels of crude a day in November, 1.655 million above their collective target, a Bloomberg News survey showed Dec. 1. Output from all 12 members, including Iraq, rose to the highest level in 11 months.
Russia, which is not an OPEC member, will send a minister to attend OPEC’s meeting in Luanda as an observer, the chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp. Shokri Ghanem, told reporters yesterday.
Source:bloomberg.com/
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