The OPEC cartel called on Saturday for tougher regulations to reduce the impact of speculative investment in the oil market, which it blames for the huge volatility in crude prices.
Oil peaked at a record high above US$147 in July but has since plunged back below US$80 a barrel as the financial crisis rocking markets slows economic growth and thus demand for energy.
“The world oil market has been increasingly affected by financial market shocks from outside the physical oil market,” OPEC spokesman Alipour-Jeddi told the IMF meeting in Washington.
“The recent wild [price] swings demonstrate the need for concerted action to reduce the impact of financial marketsm which are damaging for the oil industry, as well as the global economy as a whole,” he said.
“The existing regulatory framework has proved insufficient to properly contain the negative impact of speculative activity ... which highlights the need to consider further measures,” he said.
He specifically called for the tightening of regulation on speculative trading practices and an extension of US market monitoring.
As oil prices soared in the first half of the year, the US led a chorus of countries in the West wanting OPEC to increase output — which it agreed to — in order to ease the pain. As prices have since tumbled, some OPEC members, most recently Libya, have called on the group to cut output to support prices.
Meanwhile, Iran on Saturday called for stability in the oil market, saying the biggest challenge now was a decline in the demand for oil due to a global economic recession.
“We have to look for market stability because this matter is very important both for producers and consumers,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters.
“Studies show that the current situation in the oil market is due to a decline in demand and the global economic conditions,” Nozari said.
Nozari said last week that it would be “unsuitable” for both producers and consumers for oil to dip below US$100 a barrel.
Iran, as OPEC’s second-largest oil exporter, has traditionally opposed any crude output increase by OPEC, arguing that it would cause a fall in prices.
It has also urged fellow OPEC members to respect their output quota to avoid a worsening of the oversupply.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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