Rigzone - OPEC Ministers At Thursday (3/15) Meeting May Have To Consider Boosting Output

[hatrack]

OPEC's campaign to boost oil prices by constraining supply has worked. As oil ministers meet this week, signs are mounting that the group will soon have to begin pumping more crude. Ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are scheduled to meet Thursday in Vienna to review oil-output levels. The cartel cut production at each of its last two meetings to reduce bloated inventories.

OPEC's ministers have made clear in public statements that they won't consider tightening supply further in Vienna this week, unless prices suddenly show signs of collapsing. The omens, industry officials said, suggest OPEC will need to start increasing output in a few months to avoid choking the world economy.

OPEC members "have already reached their goal of wiping out a large part of excess inventories and stabilizing prices," said Vera de Ladoucette, director of Middle East Research at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Paris.

A senior OPEC official said ministers will review the latest demand, supply and inventory data -- including a monthly oil market report due to be published today by the Paris-based International Energy Agency, the industrialized world's energy watchdog. "It looks like there will be no change" in output policy at this week's meeting, this official said. The official cautioned against ruling out a surprise decision, if fresh data suggest a need to cut.

EDIT

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=42465

[GliderGuider]

1. We'll know by the summer what Saudi Arabia's real situation is.

The next two or three months will tell the tale. If KSA doesn't increase output as stocks continue to decline and demand rises, their fig leaf will have fallen off.

My spidey-sense tells me they've peaked.

[phantom power]

2. And when everybody sees clearly they've peaked, that itself will yield interesting effects.

[hatrack]

3. Jetzt kommt die Feuerpobe

This should be interesting.

[IDemo]

4. Holding steady for now

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/0315/oil.html

[hunter]

5. Could be they'll make up numbers, so as not to frighten the herd.

Maybe they are doing that now -- raising prices to cut demand and doing a lot of dancing and arm waving to explain it.

The way the Bush Administration works is to stop collecting data, to distract, or to simply make stuff up.

We have no data, hey, look over there! Wepons of Mass Destruction.

Sometimes when my tinfoil hat is on too tight, I wonder if we didn't invade Iraq to cover up the fact that there is much less oil there than anybody thought there was. It's not as if people in this administration haven't lied about their assets before as a means of increasing the value of their stocks and getting bigger loans.... What if Iraq is simply Enron taken to bloody extremes?

:scared:

[Dead_Parrot]

6. I may have to consider pulling several gold ingots out of my nose

and retiring into obscurity on my private island.