Venezuela offers to cut oil output along with OPEC

Caracas (AFP) - Venezuela is ready to cut its own oil production as a way to boost falling prices if OPEC agrees to curb output, Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez said Thursday.

Ramirez, who served as oil minister for 12 years until September and as longtime president of the state oil firm PDVSA, said the fair price for a barrel of oil is $100.

He said his country would make the proposal for cuts when OPEC holds talks in Vienna on November 27 for a key production meeting.

But Gulf members of OPEC, led by kingpin member Saudi Arabia, are poised to reject production cuts unless they are guaranteed market share in a highly competitive market, according to analysts.

With the price of Brent North Sea crude at less than $80 a barrel, a drop of more than 25 percent since June, Venezuela and many other major oil producers are feeling the pinch.

"No, neither producers nor consumers are interested in such a low price, because otherwise nobody will make investments to restore production capacity and then a few years later, we will again see scenarios where the price is above $100 per barrel," said Ramirez, who will represent his country at next week's OPEC meeting.

He suggested that cutting production "could raise the prices again."

Ramirez spoke after a trip to OPEC and non-OPEC countries, including Algeria, Iran, Mexico, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Every dollar drop for Venezuelan oil translates to about $720 million less per year for the country, according to estimates by Barclays.

Venezuela depends on crude exports for 96 percent of its foreign currency, and the price crunch has added to the headaches of a government already struggling to halt rampant inflation and ease severe shortages of the food and medicine it relies on oil money to import.

Venezuela and Ecuador have called publicly for OPEC, the 12-member cartel of oil-producing countries, to implement a production cut in a bid to prop up prices but OPEC nations are divided on the issue.