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OPEC Members Should Pump at Will, Qatar Minister Says (Bloomberg, 6/02/04)

OPEC should pump oil at will in the next few months, Qatar's energy minister said as the group's president called for efforts to cause a ``significant'' drop in record oil prices.

The Qatari, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, said OPEC is near a consensus to boost its output quota by 2.5 million barrels a day, or 11 percent, a plan also backed by Kuwait. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, will ensure markets have enough supply, said the nation's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi.

``Everybody should produce what they want over the next few months,'' al-Attiyah said in an interview in Beirut, where OPEC meets tomorrow. ``We do not want to see any shortage of supply at all, and we want to avoid shocks.''

Members of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries outside of Saudi Arabia are producing as much oil as they can in a bid to prevent higher energy costs from damaging a recovery in the world economy.