Dissent emerged in Opec on Sunday after Saudi Arabia announced unilateral plans to raise supply and asked Opec to endorse a big increase in cartel output limits to cut crude prices.
Hopes for swift backing from the Organisation of the Petroleum Countries for a Saudi plan to lift supply limits by 2-2.5 million barrels daily, 8-11 percent, have been dashed. Some in Opec are angry that Riyadh has decided to lift its production to just over nine million barrels daily in June, a rise of about 10 percent, without Opec approval.
"They can't. It's a mistake. Saudi Arabia can't decide alone to increase production," Libya's Oil Minister Fethi bin Chetwane told reporters. The comments bode ill for Opec unity at a time when US oil prices are near 21-year highs, peaking last week at $41.85 a barrel.
US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Saudi had promised to raise June output to 9.1 million barrels a day, slightly more than indicated in a statement from Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi on Friday.
"Minister Naimi stated to me that Saudi Arabia is fulfilling all genuine requests for June for a total of 9.1 million barrels a day and stated that going forward they will meet all requests up to their capacity of 10.5 million bpd," Abraham said.
The two officials spoke during a forum of energy producing and consuming nations in Amsterdam.
The Saudi effort would put an extra 800,000 barrels a day of oil on the world market in June, up 10 percent from its estimated April output of 8.3 million.
All other Opec members are pumping flat out, most above official limits, so any increase in quotas for them would only legitimise existing supply.
Saudi announced its measure ahead of informal Opec talks in Amsterdam on Saturday that agreed oil prices should come down to avoid hampering world economic growth.
Naimi told Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), that Saudi wanted Opec to lift quotas by 2-2.5 million barrels a day, METI official Yasuo Tanabe told Reuters.
"We support the Saudi Arabian proposal and hope that it will be adopted by Opec to show that there is a will to explode the speculative bubble," said European Energy Commissioner Loyala de Palacio.
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