'Greener, reliable' OPEC wraps up politically-charged summit
RIYADH (AFP) — OPEC leaders wrapped up a rare summit on Sunday pledging to provide reliable supplies of oil to the world, but the US-Iranian nuclear standoff cast a pall over the message of dependability.
A final declaration from the newly enlarged oil exporters' group, which welcomed back Ecuador as its 13th member, urged world peace to help stabilise prices and included a commitment to help fight global warming.
The cartel turned a deaf ear to demands from consumer countries for it to raise its output, however, which will help prop up record crude prices of nearly 100 dollars per barrel this week.
Saudi influence meant an anti-US bloc in the group failed with a bid to make the group more political, but Iran's president alluded to the possibility of the country suspending its oil exports if the US "took action" against the country.
"We would never want to use oil as a weapon or take any illegal actions ... but if America takes any action against us we will know how to reply," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a press conference.
Fear that a US attack on Iran could lead the Islamic Republic to cease its exports or block key shipping channels for oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz has driven oil prices higher in recent years.
Tension over Iran's disputed nuclear programme, which Washington claims is intended to produce a nuclear weapon, have raised the spectre of a US attack on the country.
The United States is also pushing for a third round of UN sanctions against the second-biggest exporter in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces 40 percent of world oil.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened the Riyadh summit with a typically fiery speech on Saturday urging the cartel to be a "geopolitical agent," which earned a gentle rebuke from his Saudi host, King Abdullah.
King Abdullah, whose country is the biggest exporter and most influential OPEC member, insisted after Chavez's firebrand rhetoric that oil "must not become an instrument for conflict."
The final statement did not mention the politically-charged issue of the falling dollar, which the anti-US and leftist block of Iran, Venezuela and Ecuador had favoured.
"We resolve to continue providing adequate, timely, efficient, economic and reliable petroleum supplies to world markets," said the final statement.
But Ahmadinejad said later that the group had agreed to study the idea of abandoning the falling US currency, which is used by most oil exporters to price and sell their crude.
"The meeting decided to direct our ministers of finance and oil to talk about this and later produce their findings," he said.
The falling dollar, which has shed 15 percent of its value against the euro in 12 months, has reduced the oil revenues of exporters and devalued their reserves of dollars.
Dependence on the US unit also has political significance for the anti-US bloc.
"The day will arrive not only in OPEC, but also in Latin America, when we will be liberated from the dollar," Chavez said on Sunday.
OPEC's membership is dominated by pro-Western Gulf states but includes an anti-US and leftist bloc of Iran, Venezuela and the newly ordained Ecuador.
The group has a history of using its oil exports as a political weapon -- members ceased exports in 1973 over the Arab-Israeli war -- but nowadays Saudi Arabia likes to stress the purely economic and technical agenda of the group.
"Protecting the planet" was one of three headline themes of the two-day meeting here, a surprise topic for producers of fossil fuels, the cause of global warming.
The final statement stressed "the importance of cleaner and more efficient petroleum technologies for the protection of the ... environment."
Gulf OPEC members pledged a total of 750 million dollars to a new fund to tackle global warming through financing research for clean technologies, with the emphasis on carbon capture and storage (CCS).
CCS has won support from the United States and the oil industry because it potentially offers a partial solution to the climate change problem without reducing dependence on oil or curbing consumption.
It consists of trapping carbon dioxide and burying it underground, but the technology is only in the development stage and requires massive investment to make it commercially viable.
On the subject of current oil prices, Chavez and King Abdullah did agree that they were lower than previous highs in the 1970s and 80s despite warnings from analysts that 100-dollar oil could trigger an economic recession.
OPEC oil ministers are to meet in Abu Dhabi on December 5 to decide on the cartel's output policy, with calls from consumer countries for increased output likely to persist.
