”Our deepest sympathy goes out to the families and friends of all those who lost their lives or who have been injured in this natural catastrophe of unimaginable dimensions’’ the statement signed by the Organization’s President and Kuwait’s Minister of Energy, Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah said.

In the message addressed to the US Secretary of Energy, Samuel W. Bodman, Al-Sabah assured the US that “OPEC Member Countries will continue their ongoing efforts to ensure that the oil market is well supplied with the crude oil it requires and stand ready to consider whatever other ways they might be able to assist.’’

He added that “the OPEC Conference will be discussing, at its forthcoming Meeting in September 2005, additional measures that may be taken by the Organization, within its means, in this direction to ensure, to the extent possible, stability in world energy markets, particularly oil market stability which is so important to sustained economic growth and the advancement of global prosperity.’’

Al-Sabah further reiterated the commitment of OPEC and the readiness of those of its Member Countries with sizeable remaining spare production capacity to further boost production levels to fill any supply shortfall resulting from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, to customers that call for it, adding that “OPEC stands ready to assume its responsibility and to work with others for the stability and security of the oil market.’’