OPEC Reaffirms Pledge to Cut Production Quotas（在线收听）

Melanie Sully

OPEC decided to go ahead with a four percent cut in oil production quotas, despite rising consumption and record prices of gasoline in the United States.

OPEC oil ministers decided to stick to their decision last month to reduce their target output by a million barrels per day. That means that, starting Thursday, the 11 members in the cartel will pump 23.5 million barrels per day on to the markets.

Oil analyst Ehsan Ul-Haq, of PVM Oil Associates in Vienna, says OPEC members tempted by high prices are likely to ignore the new quotas. He says non-OPEC oil producers like Russia will also take advantage of high prices and pump more oil onto the market.

He said, if prices stay high for several months then demand for oil will fall off, especially in poorer Asian countries, such as India.

At the OPEC meeting, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates wanted to delay the production cut to allow prices to settle, but lead producer, Saudi Arabia, pushed for cuts now.

Consumer countries, such as the United States, are worried that crude prices, already close to 13-year highs at around $36 per barrel, could top the $40 mark.

Mr. Ul-Haq said higher prices will hit U.S. consumers particularly hard. "The price might be too high for consumers in the United States because in Europe, because of the stronger euro consumers are not feeling the price, but in the United States they have already started feeling the prices and after the consumers have paid their taxes there might not be too much money left for gasoline."

He said what is keeping oil prices high is political insecurity around the world, and market speculation.

OPEC officials said the decision to curb output targets was made to avoid a sudden slump in prices when demand falls off in the spring. They said the decision will be reviewed in June.

注释:
OPEC [5Eupek] abbr. 全称为Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries，石油输出国组织。
quota [5kwEutE] n. 配额, 限额
cartel [kB:5tel] n. 企业联合
PVM Oil Associate  PVM石油协会
Vienna [vi5enE] n. 维也纳，奥地利首都和最大的城市，在这个国家的东北部的多瑙河上。
tempt [tempt] vt. 吸引
Baltic [5bC:ltik] n. 波罗的海，位于欧洲
crude [kru:d] adj. 天然的（石油），未加工的
curb [kE:b] v. 抑制
slump [slQmp] v.（价格）暴跌