OPEC´s Silva: OPEC evaluating trading in Euros

[aneerkoinos]

By Elio Ohep of Petroleumworld
CARACAS 12 10 03
Petroleumworld.com


OPEC´s Secretary General Alvaro Silva said Monday to Venezuelan news agency Venpress that OPEC is evaluating trading oil in euros or a basket of currencies other than the dollar to compensate for the recent decline of the US currency.

Silva, who is to hand over his OPEC post on Jan. 1. said that traiding in euros is just an alternative.

"There is talk of trading crude in euros - it is one of the alternatives," Silva told the Venpres.

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http://www.petroleumworld.com/storyT1127.htm

[aneerkoinos]

1. Same story, other sources

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/12/10/business/6879623&sec=business

http://market-flash.com/vnews3/news.php?id=746555797&mid=

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3538644&thesection=business&thesubsection=latest

[POed_Ex_Repub]

2. Time to invest in gold...

Cause the dollar is going to be all but worthless if this goes through...

[La_Serpiente]

3. Wholly $h!t

That is HUGE!!!! The Russians are thinking about putting their OIL in EUROS, but OPEC!!!!??/

[aneerkoinos]

4. From the Market Flash

"The announcement by Silva, whose term as OPEC secretary general expires at year's end, came one day after the Bank of International Settlement (which acts as a central bank for the world's central banks) released data showing that OPEC countries repatriated a total of $13.6 billion from dollar-denominated assets back to home currencies in Q2.

Factoring in the $5.2 billion switched out of dollars in Q1, this amounts to nearly $19 billion in OPEC member-states' assets being repatriated in the first half of 2003, compared with $8.8 billion in all of 2002 and $2.9 billion in 2001.

Of the $13.6 billion repatriated in Q2, $12.2 billion was returned to Saudi Arabia, according to the BIS report. Note that this Q2 figure for just one country represents more than all the assets repatriated by all the OPEC states in 2001 and 2002 combined.

Between the BIS report and the Silva statement, our assessment now seems confirmed that OPEC states are already taking some steps away from the US dollar and are considering possible additional moves in this direction."

http://market-flash.com/vnews3/news.php?id=746555797&mid=

[Capt_Nemo]

5. The US superpower status has its fate sealed

It's only a mater of time and if this is true it will be sooner
rather than later...

[aneerkoinos]

6. My thoughts.

Is Silva from Venezuela? Venezuela (Chavez) has an understandable grudge to bear, has no fear and is determined to hit US below the belt where it really hurts. Of course OPEC makes plans for all kinds of situations, the real news is that somebody speaks out... this is very much about internal Opec power play...

Saudis want to adjust oil price because of weak dollar, but Venezuela (Ramirez) says: no need for OPEC to adjust price due to dollar!

fall.http://www.petroleumworld.com/storyT1126.htm


I think Venezuela (with Iran, Libya and others) wants to change all the way to euro, Russia won't mind euro at all, and now they got a chip to play against Saudis and small Gulf states who are bleeding badly because of weak dollar and looming revolution. I smell a compromise coming early next year, a currency basket...

(Edited to add: if I'm right, imagine the irony, this little guy Chavez, whose removal was supposed to be just a normal CIA operation, ends up destroying the superpower status of USA...)