OPEC May Call Early Meeting If Oil Declines Further

(Bloomberg) — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may call a meeting earlier than the scheduled December date if oil prices continue to fall, according to Secretary-General Abdalla el-Badri.

“If circumstances dictate we have another meeting, of course we will meet,” el-Badri said today at the Oil & Money conference in London. He said he expects a market response to last week’s production cut after about a week.


Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp., echoed el-Badri’s comments, and said he’s watching the market to see whether it’s “deteriorating or stabilizing.”

Crude rose from a 17-month low today, climbing as much as $1.67, or 2.6 percent, to $64.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after falling as low as $61.75. It was at $63.76 a barrel at 10:23 a.m. London time. The price has fallen 56 percent since reaching a record $147.27 on July 11 and is down 32 percent from a year ago.

United Arab Emirates Oil Minister Mohamed al-Hamli said at the conference that at the time of oil’s price peak, speculation accounted for about $30 to $40 of the price.

Bloomberg