OPEC Won’t Meet to Discuss Raising Oil Output

OPEC said Monday that it will not hold an emergency session to consider increasing oil production to help make up for the shortage caused by the Mideast crisis.

Nevertheless, analysts predicted that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, would fulfill its pledge to boost output by as much as 2 million barrels a day to try to steady nervous oil markets. Such an increase would make up for about half of the oil lost as a result of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2.

“It is beyond assumption. . . . The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is going to increase production,” said Peter Gignoux, director of the international energy department at the Shearson Lehman Bros. investment firm in London.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez said several OPEC nations with the capacity to increase production expect to meet within days, despite the OPEC announcement.

Analysts say about 4 million barrels of crude a day have been pulled off the market because of the international embargo of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil shipments imposed since the invasion.

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Hisham Nazer said during the weekend that his country favored a meeting of the 13-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to discuss the situation. He added that Saudi Arabia intended to increase production with or without OPEC’s approval.

A brief statement issued Monday by OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna said a majority of members did not endorse the call for a meeting.

It said OPEC President Sadek Boussena, the Algerian oil minister, would meet with some other ministers before the end of the month because of the “situation in the oil market and to reflect the organization’s serious concern.” It gave no details.

The cartel is not due to hold its next ordinary meeting until year-end.

The Algerian news agency APS quoted an unidentified source close to Boussena as saying that three nations had joined Saudi Arabia and Venezuela in supporting a special meeting. It did not name the three.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholamreza Aghazadeh was quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying he opposed an immediate meeting because there is enough oil in storage in the industrialized world to make up for the loss.

Saudi Arabia, which pumps about a quarter of the cartel’s oil, has an OPEC quota of slightly less than 5.4 million barrels a day but is expected to pump up to 7.4 million a day.

Analysts predicted that Venezuela could produce about 500,000 more barrels above its current daily level of 2 million barrels to help fill the gap.