Business news in brief - OPEC willing to boost production

www.freep.com March 11, 2003

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will increase its oil production and possibly even suspend its current output quotas to keep the world supplied with ample supplies of crude in the event of a war with Iraq, said Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, OPEC president. OPEC members can pump an additional 3 million to 4 million barrels of oil a day, and they are prepared to exhaust this spare production capacity if a war seriously disrupts exports from the Persian Gulf. OPEC's secretary general and oil ministers from Iran, Algeria and Venezuela played down the possibility that the group might suspend its output ceiling.