2005 - OPEC

Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy & Industry, Qatar, talking to journalists at the 135th
Meeting of the OPEC Conference in Isfahan, IR Iran.
as hedge funds and, more recently, pension and index funds. The situation is being further
exacerbated by the influence of geopolitical tensions and downstream bottlenecks.
The Conference noted, in particular and with concern, that the shortage of effective refining
capacity, especially conversion capacity, is expected to persist, continuing to create disloca-
tions between crude and products markets, as well as contributing to higher oil prices, and
renewed its call on all parties, including non-OPEC producers and consumers, to undertake
joint efforts to address the challenges facing the oil industry, including bottlenecks affecting
the downstream oil industry, as well as called on consuming governments to align their en-
vironmental with their energy policies.
In view of the expectation of another year of strong global oil demand, coupled with con-
straints in the downstream sector and the overall expectation of a slow-down in the pace of
non-OPEC supply growth, requiring an increase in OPEC production in the second half, in
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