TEHRAN -(Dow Jones)- Iran's governor to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Saturday that a decline in investments in oil production will lead to tightened oil supplies and a crude oil price rise in the future, the semi-official Isna news agency reports Saturday.
"Inadequate investment in the (oil) production sector will be a factor in an oil price jump in the future," Mohammad Ali Khatibi said, according to Isna.
Iran's OPEC governor added that a reduction or halt in investments in the oil sector will in the future lead to bottlenecks in global oil supply, reported Isna. Khatibi's comments follow a meeting by OPEC members in Cairo last Saturday, at which the group decided to wait until a scheduled Dec. 17 meeting in Oran, Algeria, to decide whether to cut output further in the wake of the global economic crisis and declining oil demand.
OPEC made a decision in late October to reduce output by 1.5 million barrels a day in a bid to curb consistently declining oil prices.
On Friday, crude prices settled at their lowest since December 2004. Light, sweet crude for January delivery on Friday settled $2.86 lower at $40.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. January Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange settled down $2.54 at $39.74 a barrel.
Iran's OPEC governor said the organization would be sure to cut output at its scheduled Dec. 17 ministerial meeting in Oran.
"Everyone is awaiting a production cut in OPEC's production ceiling at the Algeria meeting," Khatibi said, according to Isna.
News Web site: www.isna.ir
-Roshanak Taghavi; Dow Jones Newswires; +98 919 106 4892; Roshanakt@gmail.com
Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=3zH%2BT1HmknNr5JebshabcA%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 06, 2008 08:39 ET (13:39 GMT)

Publié le 06 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones