Indonesia to quit OPEC over costly oil

By Muklis Ali

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia will quit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries because as a net oil importer it is not happy with high global crude prices, the energy minister said on Wednesday.

The country, an OPEC member since 1962, has seen its influence within the group wane as its production declines, even as the producer group gains more global clout with the admission of Angola and the rejoining of Ecuador last year.

On Saturday Jakarta was forced to make an unpopular fuel price hike as it struggled to bear the cost of importing gasoline and diesel at record high prices and selling it at heavily subsidised prices, one legacy of being a major oil producer for over a century and OPEC's only Asian member.

"Actually there is also one rationale -- that we are not happy with the high oil prices. Because we are an oil producer and we are an oil consumer," Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said.

Purnomo said Indonesia will become an OPEC member again if it becomes a net oil exporter again in the future.

"We learnt from Ecuador, they pulled out and they came back again to OPEC. In the case of Indonesia, if our production comes back to the level that gives us the status of a net oil exporter, I think we can also go back again."

OPEC declined to comment.

Global benchmark U.S. crude has risen by more than 30 percent this year to briefly above $135 last week. It was trading just above $127 a barrel on Wednesday.