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- Aug 22, 2008
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The world faces a huge oversupply of oil next year should production continue at current rates, OPEC`s secretary general said Tuesday, as his organization prepares for an emergency meeting to discuss output cuts.
Abdullah al-Badri, arriving on a two-day visit to Moscow, said he would welcome closer co-operation with Russia -- the largest oil producer outside OPEC -- but Kremlin officials and other observers would not attend Friday`s meeting in Vienna.
He declined to comment on whether OPEC member states would agree to cut output, as is widely expected, but said the world would have too much oil at the end of this year and in the first two quarters of 2009. Oil prices tumbled four per cent Tuesday amid worries that a global recession would crush fuel demand. US crude for November delivery, which expired Tuesday, settled down US$3.36 at $70.89 US a barrel.
London Brent crude settled down $2.31 at $69.72 a barrel. Oil has halved in value since peaking at $147.27 in July, reviving bad memories among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries of the 1998 price collapse when oil fell to less than $10 per barrel. Some members of the group are backing an output cut of three million barrels per day over time. Others have said a token reduction would be more appropriate.
Abdullah al-Badri, arriving on a two-day visit to Moscow, said he would welcome closer co-operation with Russia -- the largest oil producer outside OPEC -- but Kremlin officials and other observers would not attend Friday`s meeting in Vienna.
He declined to comment on whether OPEC member states would agree to cut output, as is widely expected, but said the world would have too much oil at the end of this year and in the first two quarters of 2009. Oil prices tumbled four per cent Tuesday amid worries that a global recession would crush fuel demand. US crude for November delivery, which expired Tuesday, settled down US$3.36 at $70.89 US a barrel.
London Brent crude settled down $2.31 at $69.72 a barrel. Oil has halved in value since peaking at $147.27 in July, reviving bad memories among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries of the 1998 price collapse when oil fell to less than $10 per barrel. Some members of the group are backing an output cut of three million barrels per day over time. Others have said a token reduction would be more appropriate.