The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet on December 17 in Oran to assess the international oil market situation, Algerian Energy and Mining Minister Chakib Khalil said.
Khelil, who is also the current OPEC President, said here over the weekend that the Oran meeting would study the market's prospects for the first half of 2009 in view of the measures taken by the United States to arrest the economic crisis, which has spread from the US to the rest of the world.
He pointed out at the El Moudjahid Forum here that it was useless for OPEC to decide on further output cuts if the Oct 24 decision to reduce its production by 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) was not implemented by all the members.
He also said that the creation of an OPEC-like cartel for gas exporting countries would depend on certain factors, mainly the setting up of an international gas market, which would be governed by the same rules as those prevailing in the oil market.
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum's ministerial meeting that was scheduled for November 18 in Moscow, has been postponed, he said.
The task force set up in 2002, under Russian chairmanship was in charge of preparing the organization's statutes and had to submit suggestions for the organization, he said.
"It won't be a question of a heavy organization but a lighter one with a secretariat-general and a president," he added.