OPEC talks: Saudi Arabia to boost oil output

by LotusFlower | June 22, 2008 at 07:20 pm | 109 views | add comment

Gordon Brown - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2007

Gordon Brown seems to have made the breakthrough that some thought his dour faced approaches to OPEC couldn't achieve.

Saudi Arabia has responded to appeals from Gordon Brown and other western leaders to bring down soaring oil prices by promising to extend a 200,000 barrel-a-day production increase until the end of the year.
The move from Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer, came after Mr Brown warned that the world was facing the most dangerous oil shock in modern economic history.

The Saudis had already promised to increase production to 9.7 million barrels per day during July. But at an OPEC summit in Jeddah on Sunday, they agreed to extend that rise until the end of this year.

The Prime Minister had earlier told OPEC, the oil cartel, that record oil prices could leave people in oil-consuming countries like Britain facing more years of falling living standards and economic instability.