LONDON, March 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Oil cartel OPEC took advantage of
continuing high oil prices in February to boost crude production, ignoring a December pledge to remove overproduction beyond the official 27 million barrel per day (mil b/d) output ceiling, a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials showed March 8.
Total OPEC output averaged 29.58-mil b/d in February, an increase of
290,000 b/d from January's 29.29-mil b/d. Excluding Iraq, whose output was unchanged from January at 1.85-mil b/d, the ten members with quotas pumped an average 27.73-mil b/d in February, up 290,000 b/d from January's 27.44-mil b/d.
"Higher prices inevitably lead to higher production, no matter what the official line on restraint might be," said John Kingston, global director of oil at Platts. "It is considered all but an impossibility that OPEC will cut production at its meeting next week in Iran, and it may be that market conditions by themselves are taking care of the consuming nations' need for more supply. That's what these numbers seem to show."
The biggest single increase came from Saudi Arabia, which raised
production by 150,000 b/d to 9.25-mil b/d despite having previously announced that it was producing around 9-mil b/d in line with its December pledge.
Other smaller increases totaling 160,000 b/d came from Iran, Kuwait,
Nigeria and the UAE. Only one country reduced output, Venezuelan production slipping to 2.68-mil b/d in February from 2.7-mil b/d in January.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-08-2005/0003157388&EDATE= After a 25% drop in oil prices over previous weeks, the producers agreed to try to reign in the oil market oversupply, but no one, save Venezuela has reduced output. And still the price is rising. What other explanation is there except some sort of price gouging by the oil giants?