OIL PRICES-Stability Still a Long Way

OIL PRICES Stability Still a Long Way V K Srinivasan THE expectation that the OPEC meeting in Geneva on April 15 will resolve some essential questions to enable the oil market to move towards stability (see 'Oil Market in the Eighties: Capers or Calculation?' EPW, April 19) has been belied. After discussions for seven days, marked by divided opinions, the OPEC' concluded its 77th extraordinary meeting with the issue of a communique that brought into the open the divisions in its ranks and appeared to leave wide open the key issues of (i) overall production ceiling for OPEC for the second quarter of 1986 and individual member allocations; and (it) bringing official prices of OPEC crude into a closer relation to market prices. On the first issue, the operational decision was deferred to June 1986 and on the second the OPEC reference price was retained at S 28 per barrel with a declaration to undertake renewed effort to maintain it.