Why we denied Nigeria, others, hike in oil quota, by OPEC

Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) conference president, Mohammad Aliabadi, said on Thursday that the conference refused to hike oil quota for Nigeria and other oil producing nations because the global oil market does not call for an increase in production.
Aliabadi who was head of Iran’s delegation to the organization stated this after the meeting of the ministerial monitoring sub-committee and the OPEC conference, maintained that an extensive review of the international oil market situation was done before OPEC came out with the decision.
Against all expectations, the 159th meeting of the oil cartel held in Vienna, Austria, failed to raise the total crude oil production of its member countries.
While noting that the oil market has, in recent months, been characterised by high volatility, evidenced, for example, in the record rise of the OPEC Basket Price to $120 a barrel in April, and a reversal of that trend with a sharp weekly decline of $17 a barrel in May, he opined that recent market outlook has been dominated by political developments in the Middle East and North Africa.
Aliabadi also said that speculative activity on the NYMEX has reached record highs with open interest for Nymex exceeding 1.5 million futures contracts by mid March.
This figure was 18 times higher than the volumes of daily traded physical crude.
He blamed excessive speculation in the future markets for the increase in volatility which are unrelated to market fundamentals, and called on the governments and regulatory bodies of consuming countries to step up efforts at minimizing such speculation.
Earlier in his opening address Aliabadi congratulated three Ministers who have been appointed since the last OPEC conference meeting in December 2010.
They are His Excellency Abdul-Kareem Luaibi Bahedh, who is the Minister of Oil of Iraq; His Excellency Dr Mohammad Al-Busairi, who is the Minister of Oil and the State Minister of National Assembly Affairs of Kuwait; and His Excellency Dr Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada, who is the Minister of Energy and Industry of Qatar.
He also recognized the presence of Engineer Goni Musa Sheikh, Nigeria’s Governor for OPEC, and Chairman of the OPEC board of governors, who led his country’s delegation to the meeting.
The conference president also paid tribute to the immediate past heads of delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Mir-Kazemi, Iraq, Hussain Sharistani, Kuwait, Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Qatar, Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Atiyyah and Nigeria, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke for their services to the organization.


By Adeola Yusuf SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, Lagos (With agency reports)