Opec oil 'will stay at $50 a barrel'

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said today that members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) agree on keeping oil at $50 per barrel.

“Fifty dollars per barrel, in Opec that is the consensus,” Chavez told reporters during a news conference ahead of Sunday’s presidential election.

The weekly average for the Opec basket price this week currently stands above $56.

Venezuela, a major supplier of crude to the US, is a leading price hawk within Opec.

High oil prices have brought a major boost to Venezuela’s economy, as well as Chavez’s oil-funded social programmes for the poor, ranging from subsidised grocery stores to cash assistance for single mothers. He is seeking another six-year term in Sunday’s vote.

Meanwhile, Angola, the largest sub-Saharan oil producer in Africa after Nigeria, said it will apply to join Opec next month, while the cartel’s secretary general said Sudan also was poised to join.

Opec Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo, speaking to Dow Jones Newswires today on the sidelines of a producers’ meeting in Egypt, gave no timetable for Angola or Sudan to join a group that has not welcomed a new member since 1975.

Joining offers prestige, but would mean adhering to Opec production quotas, although members routinely violate the limitations.

Opec agreed in October to cut total production by 1.2 million barrels a day to about 26.3 millions barrels a day as of November 1, and further cuts aimed at shoring up prices could be coming.

Opec controls about 40% of the world’s daily oil consumption.

David Fyfe, an International Energy Agency analyst, was quoted as telling Dow Jones that Angola and Sudan could significantly boost Opec’s influence over global oil markets because of the added volume, but Fyfe pointed out the cartel was having trouble getting existing members to adhere to quotas, speculating that adding members would only make that more difficult.

Angola’s crude production, most of it from offshore rigs operated by foreign companies, has climbed to around 1.4 million barrels a day but is expected to reach two million barrels a day by April. Sudan produces about half a million barrels a day.