P.M. BRIEFING : OPEC Quotas Firm for 3 Months
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Iraqi Oil Minister Issam Abdul-Rahim Chalabi said today that OPEC’s production-sharing pact would stay unchanged for at least three months.
His remarks, before a meeting of the group’s 13 oil ministers in Vienna on March 16, appeared to dash hopes by the United Arab Emirates for a higher official output quota.
The UAE is now producing double its OPEC quota of nearly 1.1 million barrels a day but faces political pressure to comply with the agreement.
Last month it again called for a better market share at the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
“The quotas reached at the organization’s last meeting in November will remain the same for the first half of this year,” the Gulf News Agency quoted Chalabi as saying in Baghdad.
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