Ecuador

Caracas, Venezuela, May 21, 2008 -- Abdalla Salem El-Badri, OPEC Secretary General, who is currently on a week long working visit to the two OPEC Member Countries in Latin America, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Republic of Ecuador, was on Tuesday granted audience by President Hugo Chavez Frias, in Caracas. The meeting covered a number of topics, including the current oil market situation, the positive relationship between Venezuela and the OPEC Secretariat, and a follow up on some of the issues contained in the three Declarations of OPEC Heads of State and Government which were adopted in Algiers (1975), Caracas, (2000) and Riyadh (2007).