1.
SV: delegates arriving at Chateau e la Mouette (3 shots)
0.16

2.
GV: Chairman, Niels Ersboll speaking at table and standing to shake hands with a delegate.
0.29

3.
SV: Swiss delegate at table.
0.32

4.
GV: U.S. delegation
0.37

5.
GV: Luxembourg and Norway delegation
0.42

6.
SV: Japanese delegation.
0.45

7.
GV PAN FROM delegations from Ireland, Greece.
0.51

8.
SV: British delegation
0.56

9.
SV: Austrian delegation PAN TO Belgian delegation.
1.02

10.
SV: Canadian delegation
1.07



Initials


TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Major oil-consuming nations, meeting in Paris, have decide to reduce their demand by two million barrels a day, with half that amount being saved by the United States. The agreement came on Friday (2 March) -- the final day of the twenty-nation International Energy Agency conference.

SYNOPSIS: When delegates arrived at the Chateau de la Mouette for the final session, they knew that figures on world consumption would have to be revised because of the revolution in Iran -- once the world's second largest oil exporter. Niels Ersboll of Denmark, the chairman of the Agency's Governing Board, told delegates a cut in consumption was necessary to prevent drastic price increases -- like those over the past weeks.

And most of the agency members looked to one country -- the United States -- to take the lead in cutting consumption. Richard Cooper, the American Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, said the agreement proposed that the U.S. demand be reduced by one million barrels a day. The main objective was to reduce pressure on world markets. Demands could be cut, he said, by increasing American production. The saving by all the Agency's members would represent a five per cent cut in production. This was necessary to make up for the loss of Iranian production.