LONDON - For OPEC to escape from its present bind, its members need to diversify their economies and devise a long-term strategy on oil prices, says former Saudi Arabian oil minister Zaki Yamani. In a key note address on OPEC in crisis: the Asian dimension, he told an international oil conference here Monday that the 12-nation group has lacked a long-term strategy based on a clear vision of where it is heading for many years.

The chairman of the London-based Center for Global Energies Studies exampled the seemingly indifference of OPEC to the damaging repercussion of earlier price spikes on oil demand that allowed the growth in non-OPEC supplies. OPEC, he said, had been prone to other miscalculations, including its failure to pay adequate attention to technological developments that revolutionized the discovery, development and extraction of oil.

(IRNA)