Nigeria, Sudan hold positive talks on OPEC membership

June 4, 2006 (LONDON) — Nigeria’s oil minister Edmund Daukoru said Sunday that he had held positive discussions with Sudan over that country’s possible membership to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“We held fruitful discussions with Sudanese authorities in that regard, but we will be silent to avoid being misinterpreted,” Nigeria’s state-owned News Agency of Nigeria quoted Daukoru as saying.

Nigeria, which holds the current rotating presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, invited Sudan to join the 11-nation oil producer group at the end of May. Sudan, which occasionally attends OPEC meetings as an observer, has been studying the invitation.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and the continent’s only OPEC member, has been keen to widen the producer group’s membership to other African countries, including Angola, which also has OPEC observer-status.

“OPEC will not leave any stone unturned in its desire to have more members in the crude oil market,” Daukoru was quoted as saying.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, supported by populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has said he wants his country to join OPEC. Morales recently nationalized Bolivia’s energy resources, which largely consist of natural gas.

Ecuador’s oil minister has also said in recent days that some Arab countries had invited the former member back into the organization it left in 1992.

The invitations come as OPEC has seen its ability to affect global oil prices wane in recent years due to its lack of spare oil production capacity.

OPEC currently accounts for about 42% of global oil production, down from a peak of 55% in 1974, according to the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London.

Energy analysts have said OPEC’s share of global oil output is expected to rise in coming years due to non-OPEC producing countries’ struggling efforts to boost production.

(ST)