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- BUSINESS, Page 49Business NotesOPECMore Pinch at The Pump
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- Just in time to hit motorists at the start of the peak
- driving season, gasoline prices have risen about 25% in the past
- two months, to a U.S. average of $1.25 per gal. The pain at the
- pump is largely the result of higher crude-oil prices, and no
- relief is in sight. Members of the Organization of Petroleum
- Exporting Countries, whose squabbling has sometimes led to price
- wars, were relatively cooperative with one another when they met
- last week in Vienna. Because of strong worldwide demand for
- OPEC's crude, the group decided that it could boost its
- self-imposed production quota by 1 million bbl. a day, to 19.5
- million, without suffering any serious decline in oil's market
- price of about $18 per bbl. Moreover, OPEC decided to review the
- new quotas in September, when the oil ministers meet again in
- Paris. They may be able to raise their output even more.
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- But last week the chronic rifts among OPEC's 13 members
- remained just below the surface. Kuwait, whose Energy Minister
- signed the accord reluctantly, pointedly refused to abide by
- the quota imposed by its fellow members.
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