No need for OPEC to boost output at Feb meet – Qatar

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Qatar’s oil minister reiterated on Sunday that the oil market is well supplied and there is no need for OPEC to boost output at its February 1 meeting.

In the past week, U.S. President George W. Bush and his Energy Secretary Sam Bodman have both urged the producer group to pump more oil to ease the impact of record prices on the world’s largest economy.


“I don’t think there is a need to increase because the market is well supplied,” Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Abu Dhabi.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, source of more than a third of the world’s oil, stood ready to boost supply when the market needed it, he added.

“If the market needs more oil we will be there,” he said.

Reuters