Angola, the newest member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, would be satisfied with an oil production quota of 2.5 million barrels per day in 2008, a top official at national oil company Sonangol said on Tuesday.
"That does not pose a problem," company vice president Fernando Roberto was quoted as saying by the Portuguese news agency Lusa when asked about an output limit of 2.5 million bpd.
Angola, the second-biggest oil producer in sub-Sahara Africa after Nigeria, in January became the first new country to join the oil producers' cartel in 30 years. Emerging from a 27-year civil war, the country has so far been spared Opec's quota system, but at its last meeting in September Opec said it would be submitted to it from the beginning of 2008.
In mid-September Opec Secretary General Abdullah El-Badri told journalists the cartel would fix a quota by January 1. The quota would likely be announced at the cartel's meeting in December, he added. Opec regulates oil supply from its members to control prices and Angola is the only country apart from Iraq not to have an oil output target.
The south-west African country currently produces 1.8 million barrels a day and aims to raise this figure to two million by the end of the year. Roberto, who was attending an energy conference here, said Angola did not expect "major benefits" from its membership of Opec but that it "was better to be inside than outside."
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