The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has virtually turned down Indias demand for concessional crude oil pricing with its secretary general Alvaro Silva emphasising OPEC operates only on market forces.
Silva, who is here to attend the UN conference on climate change, said while OPEC member-countries do extend bilateral financial assistance to developing countries, they do not give discounts.
Indias petroleum minister Ram Naik has been seeking concessional pricing of crude for developing countries and has been pressing for doing away with the differential pricing formulae for western developed world and countries east of West Asia like India.
Silva said oil prices were on the lower side of the OPEC band of $ 22-28 per barrel and "this is our contribution to improve the world economies."
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, worlds largest producer of oil and OPEC member, said the current price levels were okay and did not warrant any cuts.
"I will say the current price levels are okay because they are within the OPEC band," Saudi oil minister Ali said here.
Silva said the US threat of military action against Iraq had added $ 5-6 per barrel as "war surcharge."
He, however, did not hazard a guess on OPEC maintaining its current level of output at 21.7 million barrels per day at its next meeting on December 12 in Vienna.
