Kuwait Hints It May Cut Excess Oil Production
Kuwait’s new oil minister Thursday apparently gave other OPEC leaders cause to hope that his country is finally curbing excess production and will help rescue sliding crude oil prices.
The minister, Rashid Salem al Ameeri, told Algeria and Indonesia at talks in Algiers that Kuwait had shifted priorities, Algerian Oil Minister Sadek Boussena told reporters.
Its prime goal is to join a majority in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries trying to raise average prices to a target of $18 a barrel, rather than continue pressing for an immediate increase in its output quota.
“He is asking for a higher quota but it is not an ultimatum,” Boussena, who is also OPEC president, said after talks with the Kuwaiti minister lasting into the early hours of Thursday.
Boussena said Kuwait understood how weak prices were seriously damaging poorer exporters. Kuwait is one country that has broken pledges to cut oil production.
Indonesian minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita said he felt after meeting Kuwait’s Ameeri that “he is now closer to us.”
The Algerian minister convened the talks here to prepare for a critical OPEC conference in Geneva on July 25 to decide policy.
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