OPEC denied on Sunday that its acting secretary general Adnan Shihab-Eldin said in a magazine interview that his organisation wanted to increase production by just under two million barrels a day.
An interview with the German magazine "Der Spiegel", released before publication on Saturday, quoted Shihab-Eldin as saying OPEC members wanted to announce an increase in output by that amount at their next meeting in Vienna on September 19. However, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said in a statement that was incorrect, and that Shihab-Eldin had said OPEC’s spare production capacity was currently just under two million barrels per day (bpd).
“In response to a question about Opec’s plans to increase production, Shihab-Eldin had answered that member countries of the organisation still have sizeable remaining spare production capacity, currently just under two million bpd,” said the statement by OPEC’s head of public relations, Omar Farouk Ibrahim. It added that he said Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest producer, had indicated it was ready to increase production to replace any shortage in the crude oil market after Hurricane Katrina forced the shutdown of some US production in the Gulf of Mexico.
“In this regard, Shihab-Eldin mentioned that several proposals to increase OPEC production have been advanced and supported in recent days by many OPEC member countries ... and that such proposals will be considered and decided upon during the forthcoming ministerial conference,” it added.
