Mexico and Norway Can't Help on Oil Prices
OSLO, Norway (AP) - The top oil officials from Mexico and Norway on Thursday said they do not have any spare capacity to help ease crude oil prices with increased supply.

The two non-OPEC members met the day after the oil cartel resolved to raise its oil production target by 500,000 barrels per day, a move that did little to ease crude prices of more than $55 per barrel.

Norway is the world's third largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and Russia, and is already producing at its full capacity of about 3 million barrels per day. Mexico is the third largest non-OPEC exporter, with most of its sales going to the United States.

"I'm not sure there is so much extra capacity in OPEC. But if there is any increased capacity, it has to be from OPEC," Norwegian Oil Minister Thorhild Widvey said at a news conference with her Mexican counterpart Fernando Elizondo Barragan.

Barragan said he hoped oil prices would stabilize at or a little below current levels, so the cost of crude does not harm the world economy.

Both countries have state-controlled oil companies, Statoil ASA in Norway and Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, in Mexico.

Unlike Mexico, which has retained a government monopoly on its oil reserves, Norway welcomes private oil companies to its continental shelf and began the partial privatization of Statoil in 2001, now owning just over 70 percent.

Barragan said Mexico is also looking at ways of increasing cooperation with private oil companies, especially in the promising deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, to provide capital and technology.

But Mexicans are concerned about loss of control and legal amendments would be needed to open the industry, the Mexican minister said.

Barragan, who was on a three-day visit to Norway, noted that Statoil has experience with deep water fields. "In Mexico, we are evolving rapidly and we are looking for successful models for exploration and production," he said.