OPEC set to hold steady, looks to economy

AUSTRIA: OPEC was set to keep output targets steady at a meeting late on Wednesday after top exporter Saudi Arabia looked to economic strength to bolster the oil price and dismissed bulging inventories.

International benchmark U.S. crude climbed above $72 a barrel on Wednesday, close to this year’s high of $75 hit at the end of August.

Saudi Arabia, which has led calls to maintain the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ agreed curbs, said a fundamental shift in the oil market meant big stockpiles were irrelevant.

“You guys must realise that there is a fundamental change in the market. Economic growth is the name of the game, that’s what’s going to drive the price.

As long as economic growth is there, the price is going to go up,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters.

“We are happy where it (the price) is, and it’s going to be there for a while,” he said further, but he did not expect a re-run of the rally to nearly $150 in July last year, which was followed by a crash to just above $32 a barrel in December.

Other members of the 12-member group, which supplies more than a third of the world’s oil, said there was general agreement to stick to current output curbs. Even Venezuela, which in the past has been quick to urge OPEC to drive the price higher, has said output levels should be maintained, although its Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez stayed away from Wednesday’s meeting. Vienna, Thursday, Reuters