Austria, Vienna, 10 September / Trend corr. A.Alaskarov/ The 149th meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) commenced in Vienna today. Given the holy month of Ramadan, the meeting was scheduled for 21:00, local time. Egypt's Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and Sudan's Energy Minister al-Zubair Ahmed al-Hassan for the first time participated in the meeting on the invitation of OPEC President.
Opening the meeting, Algeria's Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said the market was experiencing price instability at the moment. "We witnessed rise in crude oil prices $10 per barrel a day and fall $15 per barrel within three days," he said. "Rise in prices entailed a range of consequences which are not the key factors. For instance, high speculation rate, USD rate fall, as well as geopolitical developments. Now, after drastic changes, such as recent consolidation of dollar and slackening of geopolitical tensions, we witnessed gross oil prices fall," Khalil said.
Igor Sechin spoke in favour of global market integration. "We are interested in deeper integration with global market through cross possessing of assets with leading world energy concerns," he said, adding that Russian troops had been withdrawn in accordance with the Medvedev-Sarkozy principles.