OPEC Ready to Pump Enough Oil to Build Up Global Stockpiles

OPEC will pump enough oil to build up global stockpiles and cushion consumers in the United States, Europe and Japan from higher prices this winter, the producer group’s president said yesterday.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been producing nearly flat out at 30 million barrels per day (bpd) for months as it seeks to fill storage tanks and tame prices that roared above $70 in August. Swelling inventories have cut $13 off oil since then, but OPEC President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahd Al-Sabah, also Kuwaiti oil minister, said producers want stockpiles to rise higher still. “We are allowing the stocks to build as OPEC, since last year. We are trying to make stocks build even to 56 days (of forward demand cover),” Sheikh Ahmad told reporters. “For this is one of the points that we think will be very important to stabilize prices.”

Arab News