Скачать или смотреть USA: REACTIONS TO OPEC MEETING IN VIENNA

(28 Mar 2000) English/Nat

America's Petroleum Institute has repeated its call for an increase in the global production of oil.

Members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are meeting in Vienna this week to try to agree on terms for an oil production increase.

They believe the move could reduce oil prices which have tripled in just over a year.

By the end of Monday's discussions, however, the eleven OPEC countries had failed to reach agreement.

One of America's leading oil analysts says that increasing oil production would not only help lower prices, it would also allow the U-S to decrease its dependence on foreign oil.

Fill your car with petrol today and you could pay three times what you paid a year ago.

Ask why and analysts like Mark Rubin from the American Petroleum Institute point to the fact oil is a limited resource.

When levels are low, prices go up, when there's lots of oil around, prices go down.

This is why eleven oil producing countries are meeting in Vienna this week to try to agree on the terms for an increase in the production of oil.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"They are certain countries like Iran that have very little capacity for increasing their production. They are others like Saudi Arabia that have a significant capacity to increase their production so obviously those countries will be effected differently by an increase in OPEC output."
SUPER CAPTION: Mark Rubin, Upstream General Manager for the American Petroleum Institute

As ministers from the 11 OPEC nations adjourned their first session late on Monday, they had failed to make a decision on how much crude oil to add to global supplies.

OPEC's largest producer, Iran, favours boosting production by about 1.2 (m) million barrels a day - but that amount would do little to reduce world oil prices.

Two other key producers in the group, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, support a production hike of up to 1.7 (m) million barrels a day which would amount to an increase of seven percent.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I think that the OPEC countries realise and understand the impact that oil prices have on their customers and I'm presuming that OPEC countries want to keep their customers happy to the extent that they can. I don't think the OPEC nations enjoy these wild fluctuations from ten to thirty dollars a barrel, don't enjoy the wild fluctuations as well."
SUPER CAPTION: Mark Rubin, Upstream General Manager for the American Petroleum Institute

In March last year OPEC countries agreed to curb oil output but that meant, when prices soared, they were unable to react by producing more oil.

America's Petroleum Institute says if OPEC agrees to produce more oil, the United States could produce a lot more fuel of its own.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"There are things that we can do in the United States to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. We can rely on domestic oil and natural gas more heavily. There are numerous areas where we can drill for oil and increase our resource base. Many of those areas are off limits to us now but if we open access to those areas like offshore areas, we can significantly increase our oil resources and also significantly increase our natural gas resources."
SUPER CAPTION: Mark Rubin, Upstream General Manager for the American Petroleum Institute

Discussions are due to resume on Tuesday in Vienna, Austria.

Iran is seen as the chief obstacle to a consensus, but analysts in America are hoping they world's producer's will give themselves the green light to make more black gold.

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