Baku News

12 September 2006 [16:20] - Today.Az - Oil prices fell to their lowest point since April, to $65.30 per barrel of crude, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) met in Vienna on Monday, reporting it would keep its pumping crude unchanged at 28 million barrels per day. Analysts speculated that prices might continue to fall as economic growth slows in the US. The price fall is reportedly attributed to the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon and the end of summer holidaying. The supply of oil from non-OPEC countries such as Brazil, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan could cause prices to fall even further next year, APA reports. At the meeting OPEC President Edmund Daukoru expressed concern that prices could fall even further in 2007 if production from non-OPEC nations such as Angola, Brazil and Caspian Sea countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan rises significantly as expected. OPEC, which pumps a third of the world’s oil, thinks that the prices shouldn’t be allowed to fall below $60 while OPEC members long have contended that the $50 range was ideal. Light sweet crude hit a record $78.40 in July 14. OPEC members failed to agree at the meeting on whether to appoint a new secretary-general, a mostly symbolic post now held by Nigeria. Iran has been lobbying for the job, arguing that as the cartel's No. 2 producer, it has a right to a top leadership slot. OPEC has shut Iran out of the position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.