October 17, 2006	Tuesday	Ramazan 23, 1427

RIYADH, Oct 16: Opec will hold an extraordinary meeting in Qatar next Thursday to discuss it’s next move in the wake of falling oil prices, Qatar’s Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah confirmed after two weeks of speculation and hence turbulence in the markets.

Oil has lost some 25 per cent of prices in recent weeks when compared to the July peak.

The official QNA news agency, quoting a statement from the minister’s office, said the extraordinary meeting of the cartel would held in Doha on October 19 after an invitation by Attiyah.

The Opec oil ministers would discuss "details of a reduction of one million barrels per day (bpd) in the cartel’s effective production in an effort to check the fall in prices" on the international market, the statement said.

The 11 members of the cartel agreed last Wednesday on the principle of a reduction of a million barrels a day, according to the serving Opec president, Nigerian Oil Minister Edmund Daukoru.

In Lagos, Levi Ajuonuma, a spokesman for the current Nigerian presidency of Opec earlier said the cartel would hold "a consultative meeting" for one day in Doha on October 19.

"It will be a one-day consultative meeting at which the agenda will focus on the question of a reduction in output and its distribution among member states," Ajuonuma said.

Current Opec output is fixed at 28 million bpd, not including Iraq which is excluded from the quota system.

The cartel members are currently producing less crude than authorised under their quotas, with real output estimated at between 27.5 and 27.8 million bpd.

The next formal meeting of the cartel is set for December 14 in the Nigerian capital Abuja, but faced with a huge drop in the price of crude of 25 percent; the Opec member states have been seeking ways to curb the fall.

A one-million-bpd fall in output to 27 million bpd would in reality mean a reduction of just some 500,000 barrels a day, which some member states may deem to be insufficient.

Iran and Venezuela, struggling to pump enough to meet their Opec production quotas, do not want to cede market share to those -- such as top exporter Saudi Arabia and Algeria -- pumping beyond formal Opec limits, delegates have been quoted as saying.

Analysts said Opec would probably resolve the issue by publishing a table itemising the volume to be cut by each of the 10 members, totalling one million bpd, but avoid specifying the new production limit for each country.

In the meantime, the head of the International Energy Agency has said Opec need not be worried about the recent fall in oil prices and warned that there was very little spare production or refinery capacity in the world.

"I am surprised Opec is worried about the level of prices," IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil said in an interview with La Tribune newspaper.

"Of course, (prices) have fallen significantly over the past month, but they had reached completely absurd levels," he added. Mandil clarified there was still room for further fall in crude market prices. "I am not making any forecast over prices, but I hope they continue to fall because there’s the margin," he said.