(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-17 09:57

Riyadh -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ended a two-day ministerial symposium in Riyadh Friday, highlighting the importance of development instead of immediate output adjustment.

In the two-day symposium which opened Thursday to prepare for the oil cartel's 3rd summit on November 17-18, the OPEC ministers have agreed that development and environmental issues would remain prominent throughout the gathering this time.

Meanwhile, they have pledged more market supply in the long run.

The three themes on the summit's agenda would be "Providing Petroleum, Promoting Prosperity and Protecting the Planet", said the OPEC ministers.

Environmental issues are also high on the summit agenda and an environmental fund is expected to be launched by OPEC to promote carbon dioxide emission reduction, according to a statement released late Friday.

Speaking to reporters after the ministerial meeting Friday, OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said that OPEC leaders will not include a concern about the weak US currency in a final statement of their two-day summit to be opened on Saturday.

Badri's remarks came after Iran proposed to voice OPEC member states' concern about the fall of the dollar in the final declaration of their summit meeting.

The oil cartel discussed the issue of US dollar depreciation "among ourselves", but "let me be clear: the dollar will not be in the final statement", said Badri.

Earlier on Thursday, the Libya-born OPEC chief also told a news conference that development and environmental issues would remain prominent throughout the summit.

Amid surging oil prices and call from the United States to pump more output, this OPEC summit's schedule has ruled out discussion upon immediate measures to control the daily oil output, said Badri, adding that the oil market was well-supplied and currently there was no need to increase oil output.

He noted that a final decision on its 12 members' production would be taken by OPEC ministers when they meet in Abu Dhabi on December 5.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi agreed with Badri, saying "this (Riyadh) is not the place to focus on price, incremental production or a decrease."

In a panel debate, Kuwait's acting Minister of Energy Mohammed Abdullah al-Aleem released a plan to invest 50 billion US dollars in the next five years to increase the country's oil production from 3 million to 4 million barrels per day.

Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who is an assistant minister of petroleum and mineral resources, told a press conference Thursday that "OPEC is planning a 150-billion-dollar investment to increase capacity from now until 2015 which will lead to an increase of a production of 25 million barrels a day" as it is mainly aimed to create a stable international oil market.

As OPEC Energy Services Department head Hamel Mohammed has put, the oil cartel attributed the output increment to the booming market demand, whose "outlook for oil is very healthy."

The official predicted a 40 percent growth in demand for oil by 2030, saying that emerging economies like India and China would contribute to the growth.

"China will still use five times less oil than the United States by 2030," said Mohammed in a report entitled "Oil Market Outlook and Investment Challenges."

OPEC currently groups 12 member states of Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Venezuela.

It will re-accept Ecuador, a former member who withdrew in 1992, as a formal member during the summit.

Supplying 40 percent of the global oil demand and controlling 80 percent of the world reserves, OPEC produces about 32 million barrels of oil a day and the daily basket price, based on production in 12 different countries, stood at 87.01 dollars on Thursday.

The previous two summits in the organization's 47-year history were held in 1975 and 2000.