The high price of gasoline in the United States is not due to a lack of oil on the world market, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said on Tuesday, insisting that Opec would maintain a one million barrel per day (bpd) production cut.
"As far as Saudi Arabia is concerned, (the) April 1 (cut) has been implemented," Nuaimi told reporters while he was exercising with a jog in Vienna, where the 11-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is to meet on Wednesday.
"The supply of oil has nothing to do with the price of gasoline in the United States," he said, referring to low gasoline, rather than crude oil, inventories in the United States.
In Singapore on Tuesday the New York light sweet crude contract for May delivery was at 35.27 US dollars a barrel, down from 35.45 dollars in New York on Monday.
The 10 nations in the Opec quota system decided on February 10 to reduce their total crude oil production from 24.5 million bpd to 23.5 million barrels per day (bpd) with effect from April 1, which is now two days away. Iraq does not participate in the quota system.
Opec is worried about crude oil prices falling when world demand slumps in the spring.
But the organisation is under pressure to postpone its cut, with oil prices near 13-year high points and US gasoline prices near their historic highs.
In addition to the one-million-barrel per day reduction from the production quota, Opec had committed itself in February to removing 1.5 million bpd of excess production by the end of March, bringing the total agreed decrease to 2.5 million bpd.
"We want a stable price.
We don't want our economy to be hurt and we don't want the economies of others to be hurt," Nuaimi said.
"Throwing oil on the market is destructive for the international oil industry," he said, adding that he thought there was currently a surplus of oil on the market even if there was a shortage of some types of oil like light sweet crude.
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