The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will decide whether to further cut production quotas in line with the levels of Iraqi oil exports, OPEC Secretary General Alvaro Silva Calderon said Vienna Thursday.
OPEC is satisfied with the current oil prices which are within the organization's target range of US$22-28 per barrel, Silva Calderon told reporters at the 11-nation cartel's headquarters here.
"The situation in Iraq in very fluid ... In this transitory situation, we need to have very precise information before taking a decision on the quotas," he said.
"We don't really know what the situation is like in Iraq," he said, adding that the matter will be considered when OPEC ministers meet in Vienna on July 31.
Thamir Ghadhban, the US-appointed interim head of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, has said his country's production would reach 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) at the end of June, of which nearly one million bpd will be exported.
But Ghadhban said production would not return to its pre-war levels of around 2.7 million bpd for at least a year.
(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2003)
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