US' Bodman confident Arab oil producers will "do right" by market

Kuwait City  (Platts)--14Nov2005

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, currently on a Middle Eastern tour of
major oil producers, said Monday that he was confident OPEC would supply
enough oil to markets when ministers meet in Kuwait Dec 12.
     "Judging from conversations in the first two countries, they have given 
indications of being very responsive and wanting to provide sufficient crude
oil to world markets, and I expect that they will do that and I have no doubt
that that will be the outcome of the upcoming OPEC meeting," Bodman told
reporters in Kuwait with OPEC president Sheikh Ahmed Fahed and Sabah.
     Bodman has visited the United Arab Emirates and is heading to Qatar and
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer and exporter.
     Bodman refused to speculate on quantities of crude oil that needed to be
supplied to the markets or say what he considered a fair price for the
commodity, saying only he was confident OPEC's Gulf producers would do the
right thing.
     "The OPEC ministers with whom I have visited have been very responsive
... and so I feel that they're gonna do right by the market place and make
every effort to make material available and that includes the possibility of
additional investment in expanded production to the extent that that is a
reasonable thing for them to do given their own circumstances, given their
reservoirs, given the dynamics of the situation for this region," he said
before leaving Kuwait for Qatar.
     Bodman said he discussed with Sheikh Ahmed, who is also the oil minister
of Kuwait, the possibility of US investment in Kuwait's northern oilfields
project. 
     The Kuwaiti parliament is expected to start debating a draft law
submitted by the government to govern investments by foreign oil companies in
a project to expand production capacity from northern oilfields. US majors
ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco are among consortia bidding for the long-term
servie contract.
     Bodman said he was hopeful the issue would be resolved and US companies
would be able to participate. "The world needs production. The world needs
crude oil," he said.
     -- Miriam Amie, newsdesk@platts.com

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