President likely to veto OPEC lawsuit bill

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U.S. President George W. Bush is still likely to veto legislation allowing U.S. institutions to sue the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries over its alleged actions in pushing up oil prices, an American diplomat said Nov. 16.

“We don’t think this legislation has a high likelihood of passage,” said Shannon Ross, U.S. energy attaché in Riyadh, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Ross told OPEC delegates and officials meeting here that Bush “has indicated that he will veto it if it is passed by Congress.”

In May, the House of Representatives passed the bill with a 345-72 vote, allowing the government to sue OPEC over oil production quotas. A similar vote awaits in the Senate. U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, introduced the bill, arguing that OPEC is partly to blame for high gasoline prices.

The bill would enable American institutions to block OPEC countries like Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela from invoking immunity from U.S. court action relating to concerns about oil production.

OPEC is the cartel that accounts for 40 percent of the world’s oil production.

The White House argued the bill would backfire on the U.S., making less oil available to U.S. refineries and further inflating gasoline prices.

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the week of Nov. 12 that he had asked OPEC to boost output to reduce oil prices, which reached new highs of US$98 a barrel for U.S. light sweet crude. That price has since fallen to US$93.43 a barrel overnight Nov. 16.

OPEC’s Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri said the group sees no need to add more oil to the market as the U.S. requested.

—The Associated Press