Members to boost capacity

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Thursday, July 22, 2004 | 9:17 a.m.

VIENNA, Austria -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is committed to keeping crude prices from rising further, and its members are investing to boost their output capacity to help stabilize the oil market, the group's president said today.

To help calm a nervous and sensitive market, OPEC members are investing in their oil fields and facilities to add between 2.5 million and 3.5 million barrels of daily production capacity by the end of 2005, Purnomo Yusgiantoro told a news conference at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna.

However, the director of OPEC's research division, Adnan Shihab-Eldin, later clarified to reporters that the increase in spare capacity would only be half as large as Purnomo had stated.

Shihab-Eldin said OPEC members would add between 1 million and 1.5 million barrels to their current spare capacity by the end of next year, for a new, total surplus of between 2.5 million and 3.5 million barrels.