The third OPEC summit in the organization's 47-year history
opened in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh on Saturday afternoon with
a Venezuelan call for political role to serve the third world
interests.
Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the host of the
summit, presided over the opening ceremony while Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, the host of the previous summit in 2000,
gave the opening speech.
In the speech after a brief prayer, Chavez recalled the 47-year
history of the OPEC and the previous two summits which was held in
Algeria in 1975 and Caracas in 2000.
Chavez highlighted the importance of OPEC's political role in
today's world, urging the oil cartel to show "leadership in the
third world" to protect developing countries and encourage rational
use of oil among them.
While denouncing the United State as the deep and underlined
reason behind all, the Venezuelan president said all US aggression
is for oil".
The only way to seek justice and peace in the world political
system is to deepen cooperation among OPEC member states, he
stressed.
Chavez also warned against a possible war on Iran or Venezuela,
saying that "if there is a war, the world oil price would surge to
200 (US) dollars per barrel instead of the current 100
dollars."
For his part, King Abdullah also spoke at the occasion. He
announced that OPEC will launch a fund to deal with development and
environmental issues.
The OPEC fund of US$500 million will be launched to help
developing countries to deal with development and global climate
change, said the king, without elaborating more.
In OPEC's 47 years history, the oil cartel has been focusing on
two points: protecting its members and guaranteeing the stable oil
supply, said the king.
The leaders of the oil cartel's 12 member states, except Libyan
leader Moamer Kadhafi and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, attended the opening ceremony of the current OPEC
summit.
Indonesia was represented by Vice President Jusuf Kalla on
behalf of President Susilo.
OPEC currently groups 12 member states of Algeria, Angola,
Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Venezuela.
It will re-accept Ecuador, a former member who withdrew in 1992,
as a formal member during the summit.
Supplying 40 percent of the global oil demand and controlling 80
percent of the world reserves, OPEC produces about 32 million
barrels of oil a day and the daily basket price, based on
production in 12 different countries, stood at 87.01 dollars on
Thursday.
The Libya-born OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri told a
news conference on Thursday that development and environmental
issues would remain prominent throughout this summit.
Amid surging oil prices and call from the United States to pump
more output, this OPEC summit's schedule has ruled out discussion
upon immediate measures to control the daily oil output, said
Badri.
The oil market was well-supplied and currently there was no need
to increase oil output, he added.
(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2007)
