Opec agrees ideal oil price is between $25 and $30 per barrel: Gus Dur

President Abdurrahman Wahid said members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed in their summit meeting in Caracas on Thursday to periodically set up an ideal level of the oil prices to ensure that the price fluctuation would not hurt both producers and consumers, Kompas reported.

"The meeting agrees that the current ideal level of the oil price is between $25 and 30$ per barrel. We also agree that the summit meeting will be held every five years," he told journalists during a flight from Caracas to Brasilia.

He said that the meeting, however, had yet to decide which forums that will determine and fix the level of oil prices, which is considered ideal to both producers and buyers. "If the ideal price level is determined during a summit meeting, it will not be realistic because the summit will be held only once in five years. There will be a decision later on the mechanism in the determining the ideal price level," he added.

Gus Dur, as the President more popularly called, also said that the summit meeting also agreed to include issues related to the restructuring of debts of developing countries in the declaration issued at the end of the summit meeting.

The President said that the meeting agreed to invite talks to industrialized countries to solve problem that might arise due to the surge in oil prices. But, on the other hand, the meeting dismissed the allegation that the surge in the oil price to above $30 per barrel was caused solely by OPEC members. (*)