Some Opec members moot US$80 as new 'fair' oil price

Vienna

NEARLY a year after oil markets entered a deep downward spiral, unmoored from the US$100-a-barrel mark that had anchored them for years, some members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) are publicly talking for the first time about a new "fair" price for their crude.

Oil ministers from Iraq, Venezuela and Angola said in Vienna this week that a price of US$75 or US$80 a barrel - barely US$10 above the going rate - could be just fine. Iraq's Adel Abdel Mahdi said it would be "equitable".