OPEC Oil Production Cut `Is an Option,' Libya's Ghanem Says

By Maher Chmaytelli

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC, the supplier of more than 40 percent of the world's oil, may decide to cut production at a meeting on Sept. 9 because the market is oversupplied, Libya's top oil official said.

``We will study Venezuela's call for lower production, and the logic behind it,'' Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp. said in a telephone interview from Tripoli today. ``The market is now oversupplied. If a cut helps bring it to balance, then why not? It's an option.''


Venezuela, South America's biggest oil producer, will propose that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut oil output quotas if crude prices continue to fall, Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maher Chmaytelli in Nicosia at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net.