Saudis Back Lower Oil Prices

WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia will work with OPEC to bring oil prices to a ”reasonable level,” the kingdom’s ambassador said Wednesday.

Asserting Saudi Arabia’s traditional leadership role in the council of major producers, Ambassador Turki al-Faisal said his government will reflect ”the international world’s interests” at the next OPEC meeting in a month or so.

The envoy did not specify the level of prices or of production Saudi Arabia would promote as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reviews the recent sharp decline in prices. He attributed the drop to abundant production and better management of oil inventories.

Saudi Arabia has in mind poorer countries that cannot afford high prices, the ambassador said at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

”These are the countries most affected when the price of oil goes up to $70 a barrel,” he said.

”So it is our concern… in trying to bring down the prices to a reasonable level, to allow these (poorer) countries to meet the challenges,” the envoy said.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has played a moderating role in the price of oil, consistently stating that the global economy plays an important part of the Saudi economy. This comes from two facts: The Saudis actually are involved in humanitarian issues and that the Saudis are invested so widely that anything that affects the global economy affects their economy. This latter point is what makes a repetition of the 1973 oil embargo an impossibility now.