By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
President of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has assured that the cartel would stabilise oil prices on the global market.
Speaking to State House correspondents in Abuja yesterday, she said even though she is taking over the leadership of OPEC at a challenging period, she would do everything possible to ensure oil prices are stabilised.
“This is a very challenging time as you know for OPEC and for the global crude oil wells as a whole,” she said. “Quite clearly, there has been a battle of wills between certain OPEC countries, the big players and certain non-OPEC countries who are big players in the world crude oil production markets at this time.
“Many countries, both OPEC and non-OPEC countries, are suffering immensely. Even as we speak, Venezuela has gone into austerity measures and is measuring food because they were completely dependent on oil.
“Angola, Algeria, Iran are all under duress as is Nigeria, because it has affected our budgetary benchmark. And even non-OPEC countries like Russia who will not cut production are already seeing a drop in the value of their rubble.
“So it is quite impactful on OPEC prices and what OPEC does in the global oil market. And so we will be watching very closely as president of OPEC at this time at what point we have to call OPEC extraordinary meeting and reconvene to see whether other strategies can be put into play.
“We cannot continue to do business as usual. We must ensure that we have the right enabling parameters and indices in this country to attract the right end user markets, end user demand for our products because there are so many other countries that would be competing for those end user markers and to get that end user demand.
“So, we will have to sit down and reformulate our entire approach over the next month or so, in fact immediately, to ensure that we are in fact at the cutting edge of competitiveness, we make ourselves competitive in the market and we are able to garner and take those end user markets.”
