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Saudi Arabia committed to oil market stability
By TAREK ELTABLAWY,AP Business Writer AP - Thursday, January 15
CAIRO, Egypt - While benefiting global economic recovery efforts, current low oil prices are not reflective of true supply-demand fundamentals, Saudi Arabia's oil minister said Wednesday, stressing that OPEC was committed to bringing stability to the market.
"Stability means oil prices maintained at a level that encourages investment, helping create a climate conducive for the development of all viable energy sources," Ali al-Naimi said.
"Because of the current worldwide economic and financial downturn, prices decelerated to levels not reflective again of market fundamentals," he said.
In December, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced a 2.2 million barrel production cut aimed at shoring up prices that have plummeted around 70 percent below mid-July highs of nearly $150 per barrel.
But the cuts, which came on top of another 2 million production cut instituted in the last quarter of 2008, have failed to provide lasting support to prices, which on Wednesday hovered around $39. Economic woes and shrinking demand have outweighed clear indications that OPEC, for once, is actively complying with its production quotas.
Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, has said crude at $75 per barrel was fair for both consumers and producers and would help push investment needed to keep a steady supply of crude available once the world emerges from the current economic crisis.
"Price is determined by market," al-Naimi was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India at an oil conference in New Delhi. "OPEC does not determine the price. OPEC is attempting to lessen volatility in market and bring stability and make prices more predicable."
That price level has found support among OPEC members, with Qatar's oil minister saying $70 per barrel was reasonable.
"I am against very high oil prices and (I) also do not appreciate low oil prices," Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah told Press Trust of India in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.
"Low oil prices result in (a) freeze in investment in new resources and when growth comes back, we will have another oil shock because there will be not enough resources to meet the demand," he said.
While many analysts have issued the same warning, others have begun to question that premise.
In a research note published Tuesday, Newedge analyst Antoine Halff said that while there are "admittedly substantial upside risks" once demand recovers, "we think market conditions point to a protracted bear market."
Halff cited ten factors that could undercut a sharp rebound in prices, including U.S. consumers remaining pressured by falling housing prices, increasing energy efficiency on a global scale and lower oil production costs that dispel "misplaced concerns that falling prices will make upstream projects uneconomical."
For OPEC members, the slide in crude prices has been a powerful blow.
Most of the countries rely heavily on crude exports for the overwhelming majority of their foreign revenue. As a result, last year's heady multibillion dollar surplus in Saudi Arabia, for example, is likely to be wishful thinking in fiscal 2009 as the country projects a budget deficit for the first time since 2002.
While the Gulf Arab nations are expected to weather the downturn, at least in the short to medium-term, budgets are being strained, projects are being delayed and economic growth rates are being quickly revised down amid tightening credit markets and liquidity strains.
Some of the OPEC members have expressed an interest in an extraordinary meeting ahead of their scheduled meeting in Vienna in March.
But that call has yet to be met with much enthusiasm by most of the group, which is carefully assessing compliance with its latest round of output reductions.
Even so, the bloc appears ready to act.
In an interview published Tuesday night on the organization's Web site, OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said OPEC members are complying with their targets. But if by March the market is still oversupplied, OPEC "will not hesitate to take further measures to balance the market," he said.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in a report released Tuesday, expressed some doubts that the group will fully abide by its pledged reductions.
"Adherence to the announced cuts will be challenging, as several individual countries are motivated to maintain production at higher levels to generate revenue needed to finance their government programs amid falling prices," the Energy Department's forecasting agency said in its latest Short Term Energy Outlook.
"The lack of transparency in the new agreement, highlighted by the failure to publicize individual country production cuts, is one indicator of the reluctance of countries to cut production consistent with the group's new overall production target," the report said.
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