(1888PressRelease)
September 15, 2007 - Despite objections from Iran, Qatar, Venezuela, Libya and Algeria, members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) have agreed to increase oil production for the first time in a year.
The move was championed by Saudi Arabia, Opec's biggest exporter, in the wake of a 28 per cent surge in the cost of oil which has taken the price level to over $78 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly concerned that should oil prices remain high, a number of countries could slip into recession - with the US economy a particular concern given the effects of the subprime mortgage market crisis.
As a result, it was decided at the meeting - held in Vienna - that production should be increased by 500,000 barrels a day.
"The Saudis are the big dogs, and they did get everyone to come around to their point of view,'' Peter Beutel, president of energy consultant Cameron Hanover, commented, according to Bloomberg.
"[They] have decided to step in here and play a role but maybe they've got some people ticked off at them inside Opec.''
The news comes a week after Opec officials intimated that there would be no changes made to the quota at the Vienna meeting as supplies were deemed sufficient to meet demand.
Further analysis could be supplied on the oil markets by Aranca, an end-to-end provider of on-demand, custom investment, business and economic research.
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