The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will order production cuts next week so as to reverse the recent slump in oil prices, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said Saturday.
"In four days, OPEC will cut its output so oil prices can return to a just level," Chavez told a news conference after addressing the opening session of the annual debate in the United Nations General Assembly.
Oil ministers representing OPEC's 11 members, which produce 40 percent of the world's crude, are due to meet at the organisation's Vienna headquarters on Wednesday.
"OPEC did not cause the world recession," Chavez said.
"The price of Venezuelan oil closed at 15.62 dollars on Friday," he said, adding that a fair price would be between 22 and 28 dollars.
Oil prices have slumped to two-year lows since the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and OPEC sources in Vienna said Friday that the cartel was likely to cut output by up to 1.5 million barrels per day.
In Baghdad on Saturday, Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid said Iraq hoped that OPEC would "make the radical decision" to cut production by at least that much.
Rashid said "there was an agreement to that effect among most member countries."
But his Iranian counterpart, Bijan Namdar Zangheneh, said in Tehran on Saturday that Iran was reluctant to cut its oil production without non-members of the cartel following suit.
"If there is no cooperation from non-member states Iran will not be prepared to reduce its production by even a single barrel," Zangheneh warned.
The price of oil bobbed up above 21 dollars a barrel on Friday, as Russia finally signaled it was ready to join OPEC in reducing volumes to help put a floor under a market weakened by the global economic downturn.
(China Daily November 11, 2001)
