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| <title>28th Meeting Of The Ministerial Monitoring Sub-Committee</title> | |
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| <p align="center"><img src="../../PressReleaselogo.gif" width="499" height="154" name="Image1"> <img src="../../Anniversary_Logogif.gif" width="136" height="138"></p> | |
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| <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">No. 5/2000<br> | |
| Vienna, Austria, 21 June 2000 | |
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| <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b><font size="3">Opening Address | |
| to the</font></b></font> | |
| <font size="3"><br> | |
| </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b><br> | |
| <font size="4">110th (Extraordinary) Meeting of the OPEC Conference<br> | |
| <br> | |
| </font><font size="3">by | |
| His Excellency Alí Rodríguez Araque | |
| <br> | |
| Minister of Energy & Mines of Venezuela | |
| and | |
| <br> | |
| President of the OPEC Conference | |
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| Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen, | |
| It is a great honour to welcome you to the 110th (Extraordinary) Meeting of the OPEC Conference, here at our Secretariat in Vienna. | |
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| As you all know, this Extraordinary Meeting has been arranged with the specific purpose of reviewing the international oil market's performance at the halfway stage between our March and September Ordinary Conference Meetings. | |
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| At the same time, our Meeting will provide us with an opportunity to catch up on progress being made in preparation for OPEC's 40th Anniversary events in September, especially the Second Summit of OPEC Heads of State and Government which is due to take place in Caracas, Venezuela, in late September. | |
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| As ever, oil market stability remains high on OPEC's agenda. This is only to be expected given the exceptional level of instability the market has experienced over the preceding two and a half years. This has struck at both ends of the price spectrum and caused much uncertainty and disruption within the industry. Left to its own devices, instability breeds instability and is disastrous for the industry, both at the present time and in the future. It is also bad for the world economy, since oil is the leading energy source, accounting for two-fifths of the global energy mix. If oil prices are unstable, then this has an impact on the broader economic landscape, as we have seen so often in the past. | |
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| OPEC remains committed to the objectives set out in our Statute, namely the achievement of security of supply, with reasonable prices for consumers and fair returns for investors. Guided by this abiding principle, the Organization considered it incumbent upon it to take action when prices reached extreme levels on two occasions in the past thirty months. Here, I refer to the landmark agreements of March 1999 and March 2000, with their diametrically opposed solutions to diametrically opposed crises. The first agreement, as you all know, was to scale back output when prices seemed to be stuck at rock bottom levels, whilst the second was to restore the earlier production levels when prices appeared to be over-heating. | |
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| On both occasions, OPEC acted jointly with some leading non-OPEC producers, who were similarly aware of the dangers inherent in unrealistic and unsustainable prices. Prominent among these were Mexico, Norway, Russia and Oman. Once again, OPEC expresses its appreciation to all parties in the industry that took measures to achieve order and stability in the market. | |
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| The success of the 1999 and 2000 agreements has served to underline, yet again, the strength of OPEC's solidarity and cohesion as well as the value of co-operation between OPEC and non-OPEC producers and I am confident that this favourable trend will be built upon and reinforced in the coming years. After all, an orderly market is in the best interests of all parties - producers and consumers; OPEC and non-OPEC alike. | |
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| As we come to examine recent market developments and assess how we wish to proceed from here, one of the facts which we should not fail to stress is the longstanding discrepancy regarding the excessive taxation of oil and the effect that this has on the final price to the consumer. In the United Kingdom, for example, more than four-fifths of the price of a gallon of petrol is taken in tax. Across the European Union, tax accounts for more than two-thirds of the price of a composite barrel of petroleum products, with just 16 per cent going to oil producers. And yet, at the same time, people in consuming countries point the finger at OPEC when they find themselves paying a high price for their petrol. This is quite wrong. These people should tackle their own governments about excessive petrol prices and not OPEC. | |
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| May I now suggest that we turn to the business at hand. | |
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| Thank you. | |
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