RIYADH (Agencies)
OPEC leaders began a summit on Saturday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez issuing a chilling warning about oil prices in a speech that also urged the group to be actively involved in foreign policy.
The fiery leftist leader warned in an opening speech that crude prices could double from their current already-record level of near 100 dollars a barrel if the United States attacked Iran or Venezuela.
"If the United States was mad enough to attack Iran or aggress Venezuela again the price of a barrel of oil could reach 150 dollars or even 200 dollars," he said.
He urged assembled leaders from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, meeting for only the third time in the cartel's 47-year history, to club together for geopolitical reasons.
"The basis of all aggression is oil. It is the underlying reason," Chavez said, pointing to the war in Iraq and U.S. threats against Iran.
His remarks were tempered by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who said that "oil is an energy for construction and must not become an instrument for conflict."
OPEC's 12-strong membership is dominated by pro-Western Gulf states but includes an anti-U.S. bloc of Iran and Venezuela.
Another leftist South American country, Ecuador, is set to seal its return to OPEC at the summit after leaving the cartel in 1992.
The event comes at a time of tension on world oil markets, with the cartel under pressure to increase its output to help calm record crude prices that had threatened to breach 100 dollars a barrel 10 days ago.
The talks are intended to map out the strategic direction of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces about 40 percent of world oil, but the group is divided on a number of issues.
In a gaffe late on Friday, a private meeting of OPEC oil, foreign and finance ministers was mistakenly broadcast to journalists, revealing a discussion between Saudi Arabia and Iran about the waning U.S. currency.
Saudi Arabia appeared to have prevailed in the debate about the dollar and OPEC's secretary general has said the issue will not be mentioned in a final communiqué to be issued by leaders on Sunday.
King Abdullah also announced that Saudi Arabia was to invest 300 million dollars (200 million euros) to develop technology to tackle climate change.
The fall of the dollar, which has declined by about 15 percent in 12 months, has affected the revenues of OPEC members because most of them price and sell their oil exports in the U.S. currency.
Despite pressure from consumer countries to increase supplies to help cool near three-figure oil prices, OPEC ministers have ruled out taking a decision, at least until a regular meeting in Abu Dhabi on December 5. |
