Opec awaits members' price band proposals
August 19, 2004
Jakarta - Opec members have yet to submit proposals for a new price band range to be discussed next month during the organization's meeting in Vienna, its president said here Thursday.
"Opec will discuss the issue of the price band at its meeting but the range of the price band is not yet known because there aren't yet proposals from Opec members," Purnomo Yusgiantoro, told reporters.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is to meet on September 14 in the Austrian city.
Opec's current price range is between $22 and $28 a barrel, above or below which it can adjust production.
But New York's main oil contract climbed above $47 per barrel for the first time Wednesday, amid fears of disruption to supplies in Iraq and Russia and ahead of weekly estimates of US oil inventories, analysts and traders said.
The cartel said Wednesday its oil production would be more than enough to cover demand at the end of this year and in 2005.
Output by Opec should reach 30 million barrels per day this month and could increase to 30.5 million in September, its monthly report said.
According to Opec, high prices are being driven by squeezes in the so-called upstream sector - exploration and production - and downstream activities such as oil refining, whether tight conditions are real or simply perceived as such. - AFP
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