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Chavez: OPEC price band should be $40-$60
If OPEC reinstates an oil price band Venezuela President Hugo Chavez would like to see the level set between $40 and $60 a barrel.
“The band could be between $40 and $60,” Chavez was quoted as saying May 10 in a report on the Web site of Venezuelan television station Globovision. Chavez made the comment in Brasilia, Brazil, where he was attending a summit of Latin American and Arab leaders.
Chavez, who claims the world is on the edge of an energy crisis, is one of the leading hawks in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and has consistently lobbied in favor of high oil prices.
OPEC got rid of the ban earlier this year. It was originally set up in 2000 to keep oil prices within a target range, its members agreeing to adjust OPEC output quotas by 500,000 barrel a day increments if oil prices rose above the upper end of the band for 20 consecutive days or dropped below the lower end for 10 days. World energy crisis ahead In a statement following the summit, Chavez restated his concern that a worldwide energy crisis is imminent, citing massive oil consumption by the United States and other developed countries as the main reason.
Oil production has peaked, he said, and cannot increase to match the rising demand, which will lead to a crisis.
At the South America-Arab countries summit, eight of the 11 members of OPEC countries were represented, but the official agenda of the meeting did not include the issue of oil.
Mining and energy ministers from Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela said May 10 that they have signed a document creating a forum called Petrosur which will manage joint projects in the oil sector.
The announcement was made by Marco Aurelio Garcia, special adviser for international affairs in Brazil’s presidency.
The new forum — a brainchild of Chavez — is aimed at flexing South America’s oil muscle and will count on the help of Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras SA, Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, and Argentina’s state energy company, Enersa.
Garcia said projects to be managed under the name of Petrosur include a joint Petrobras-PdVSA refinery for heavy crude in Brazil’s Northeast; a joint oil exploration by Petrobras and PdVSA off Venezuela’s coast; and possible new oil exploration projects in Argentina.
Garcia gave no other details.
—Petroleum News
(Associated Press contributed to this report)
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