March 14, 2003	Friday	Muharram 10, 1424

MOSCOW, March 13: Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Thursday he was confident that Opec and Saudi Arabia would deliver more oil in case of war in Iraq.

“I’m confident that Opec in general and Saudi Arabia in particular will deliver,” al-Naimi told Reuters on his arrival in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart, Igor Yusufov.

Naimi was responding to a question about a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) saying output increases over the past two months had left effective spare capacity in Opec at just 900,000 barrels per day on the 78-million bpd global market.

“What about the IEA? I believe we have plenty (of oil) and our capacity has not been tested,” he said.

Opec says it has three million barrels a day to hand in case the United States launches the war it says is necessary to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Opec pledged to fill any disruption in a meeting this week but did not agree to a formal suspension of its output limits if war broke out, raising concerns that the oil price might spike.

Iraqi supplies, running at 1.7 million bpd over the past month, are expected to shut down if Washington launches an assault against Baghdad. While, Kuwait has said it may need to suspend as much as 700,000 bpd as a precaution during war.

Russia, the world’s second biggest producer of oil, is thought to be exporting at full capacity, and would not be able to increase production to bring prices down.

Naimi did not specify the subject of his talks with Yusufov.

“Saudi Arabia and Russia are the world’s largest producers and exporters and of course the stability of the oil market is of concern to all producers,” he said.

“That’s what we will be talking about, coordination, cooperation and so forth.”

Russian officials said he would also be meeting Viktor Khristenko, a deputy prime minister with responsibility for macroeconomic matters, and Andrei Illarionov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic adviser.

Naimi was adamant that a US strike on Opec member Iraq would not divide the 11-member oil producing cartel.

“I don’t believe anything is going to split Opec,” he said.—Reuters