OPEC expects oil prices to fall to 30 dls per barrel

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) expects to see a fall in global oil prices to as much as 30 US dollars per barrel, OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro has said. "Oil prices have retreated, but we want them to fall to about 30 dollars per barrel. That would be good enough," Purnomo, who isalso the Indonesian minister of energy and mineral resources, was quoted Friday by The Jakarta Post as saying. He said OPEC would first take an inventory of its spare oil capacity before making any decision on a possible hike in its official output ceiling at the cartel's meeting on Sept. 14 in Vienna, Austria. "That's part of the agenda. If we consider that (raising output) needs to be done, we'll take an inventory on how much spare capacity we have from each member of OPEC, so we can raise OPEC quotas," said Purnomo, ruling out the possibility of moving the meeting up to an earlier date. He previously said that, if needed, OPEC would be ready to raise production by between 1 million and 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Purnomo said OPEC members were producing more oil than the official quota in an effort to cool down an overheated market. Currently, the cartel's oil production has reached 30 million bpd, consisting of a quota of 26 million, 2 million from Iraq, and 2 million in overproduction.