UK, Norway won't attend meeting of non-OPEC nations on production
By the OGJ Online Staff
LONDON, Oct. 22 -- Europe's two largest oil producers, Norway and the UK, will not attend an Oct. 29 meeting in Vienna of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and major non-OPEC oil producers to discuss the current fall in world oil prices.
Norway has in the past attended occasional OPEC ministerial meetings as an observer, but UK governments have consistently maintained an arms-length relationship with no official links to the Vienna-based exporters organization.
Non-OPEC producers Russia, Mexico, Oman, and Kazakhstan have already indicated that they will join the 11 OPEC members at the meeting.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met his counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday for negotiations focusing on Russia's role in stabilizing energy prices.
Chavez, who arrived in Moscow from Teheran where he met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, has vowed to support oil prices that fell sharply in response to a drop in energy consumption following the terror strikes.
Because of its policy on energy exports that account for a large portion of annual state revenues, Russia has so far rejected OPEC suggestions that it could meet the organization's criteria for membership .
In a statement issued in Moscow by the Russian government at the start of the Kremlin meeting, Putin told Chavez that a sharp fall in energy prices and increased oil production ran counter to Russian national interests.
He said Russia has consistently favored a just oil price and its representatives at the OPEC meeting in September reiterated that view.
OPEC wants an agreement from non-member exporters to help move prices back into its $22-28/bbl target range for its reference basket of crudes. The basket price dropped to a new 2-year low of $18.54 last week and the price of North Sea benchmark Brent closed the week at $21.33 on the London exchange.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are believed to have called for the Oct. 29 meeting and are suggesting that a freeze on non-OPEC output would be the price of OPEC's continued discipline.
Kuwait, one of the organization's more influential and moderate members, has said it will support any moves to raise world oil prices, but only to the lower half of the cartel's $22-28 range.
The country, which has 10% of the world's oil reserves, has had an OPEC quota of 1.861 million b/d since Sept. 1 as part of efforts to raise prices to the $22-28 band. Kuwait's crudes recently have been trading in the $15.45-18.75 range after averaging $23 in the first 6 months of the year.
