Bill Richardson, the former secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, called on the new U.S. administration led by President George W. Bush to continue his policy of engagement with OPEC regarding the price and production issues.
Speaking on February 12 to the BridgeNews agency, Richardson specifically named countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Venezuela, and the non OPEC members Mexico and Norway, as partners for such a dialogue.
Richardson expressed his concern that OPEC may become “comfortable” with $30-per-barrel price level, and stressed that the recent production cut is not helping either to ease tension. He expressed his hope that the coming meeting of the organization in Vienna will restore more production, resulting in more stable market.
Richardson said that one result of the dialogue between the U.S. and OPEC should be a clear understanding about the the price differences between the OPEC basket of crude and the West Texas Intermediate (WIT), which is the New York Mercantile Exchange’s U.S. benchmark for crude oil “For instance $25 to WTI may be $21 to $18 in OPEC countries and since we all decided that $25 WTI was the norm, these little differentials have become inconsistent or troublesome. So I think there has to be a dialogue between producers and consumers to bridge that gap," Richardson stated.
The OPEC basket of seven crudes comprises Algeria's Saharan Blend, Indonesia's Minas, Nigeria's Bonny Light, Saudi Arabian Light, Dubai of the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela's Tia Juana and Mexico's Isthmus crudes.
Richardson also expressed concern about the deliberate disruptions to oil supply by Iraq. "They seem to be playing games,.” he said. – (Albawaba-MEBG)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
