NICOSIA, Cyprus, March 3 (UPI) -- OPEC Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri said a major oil production expansion project could be delayed if oil prices drop below $50 a barrel.
"My concern now is the price, because we are undertaking a lot of investment. If we don't have a reasonable price then that investment will not be finished," Badri told the Middle East Economic Survey in an interview to appear Monday, Alalam Arabic satellite TV reported Saturday.
The price of OPEC oil was about $58 a barrel, but it did fall slightly below $50 a barrel last month, Alalam reported.
Badri said OPEC has plans to spend $130 billion in projects upstream by 2010 and another $124 billion in the five years after that, Alalam said.
"If (oil) prices go down and if costs go up then, in the future people will think twice before they undertake any project. So maybe instead of finishing them in two or three years they will finish them in five or six years," Badri said.
