Market Eyeing What OPEC Does, Doesn`t Pump

…Ministers didn`t overtly play up the method for arriving at the new production ceiling. As with the output cuts agreed last October and December, intended to take 1.7 million barrels a day from the market, OPEC pegged the baseline for the cuts to market reckoning of the group`s output, not outdated formal output quotas.

But in an unexpected step, OPEC ministers have released a new list of national output allocations that shake to their core some claims of recent production levels. OPEC had fudged the details of prior deals by only quoting the volumes of reductions, or the level of the new collective output ceiling.


Venezuela, which claims August crude oil output of 3.03 million barrels a day, instead found OPEC using a measurement from so-called secondary sources for its baseline which led to a new output allocation from Nov. 1 of 2.47 million barrels a day.

OPEC officials said after their meeting they were interested in bridging the gap between Venezuela`s assertions and market assessments of output.

For the first time since OPEC had allocations in place under a 28 million barrels a day output ceiling from July 2005 and October 2006, OPEC has posted on its Web site allocations for each of the 10 member countries.

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