OPEC: price level ...critical... at the next meeting

Ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will hold strongly to the level of prices set for the production of the cartel at their next meeting on May 28 in Vienna, said Thursday the head of the delegation, Choukri Ghanem.

• “We are waiting to see if what goes on the market is a (sustainable) trend for the improvement in prices or they will go back,” said Chokri Ghanem, chairman of the National Petroleum Company, which served as Minister of Petroleum, joined by the AFP by telephone.
  
      He added that “the market is characterized these days by a (high) volatility” and that the price state would be “crucial” at the meeting.
  
      Moved from a record of 147.50 dollars in July to 32.40 dollars in December, oil prices have gradually strengthened since the beginning of the year. The movement has accelerated over the past three weeks and prices have dropped Wednesday the bar 62 dollars for the first time in six months.
  
      OPEC holds an extraordinary meeting Thursday 28 May in Vienna, where it ensures that its offer is consistent with the application.
  
      To support prices and adjust its production to a slump in demand because of the crisis, the cartel has cut three times its production end 2008, removing a total of 4.2 million barrels per day (MBD) of market. Its new production quota is set at 28.84 MBD.
  
      “Of course, prices have improved, but a surplus of sizeable stocks pressured the market, and the level of oil at sea is high,” the minister was concerned.
  
      However, he noted amelioration in Wall Street and improvement of the U.S. economy, the factors involved in the recent surge in oil prices.
  
      "The market is in turmoil by a number of factors," he said.
  
      His Algerian counterpart, Chakib Khelil, felt a week earlier that OPEC should maintain its quotas if crude prices continued to rise.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ afp