OPEC's Khelil, a pragmatic leader in testing times

By Barbara Lewis

LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC President Chakib Khelil is a skilled communicator and oil industry professional who will oversee efforts to bolster sagging prices and to restore the group's clout at a critical meeting on Wednesday in Algeria.

During his year as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries public face, Khelil has sought to steer the group's 12 members as they tried to slow a record rally and then struggled to brake a record price crash.

With almost a decade of experience in OPEC policy and 19 years as a World Bank energy specialist, the 69-year-old Algerian fluent in five languages has been rarely lost for words.

As oil slid from a record of nearly $150 a barrel to just above $40, he said he thought an ideal price would be between $70 and $90 -- a price range now widely accepted in the group.

"Normally OPEC has no price target," Khelil said. "But people say the bottom price, the bottom cost below which we cannot step down, is between $70 and $90 a barrel."

While Khelil's approach to policy has been pragmatic, his role as a politician from non-aligned Algeria has given him a degree of empathy with OPEC members such as Venezuela and Iran, who have a great need for high prices.

They have said they can live for a while on their profits. But analysts have said they need oil of nearly $100 a barrel if they are to finance big popular spending plans and they have been at the forefront of calls to lower the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' output ceiling.

Although this year's average for benchmark U.S. crude is still above a $100, the outlook for 2009 when many predict fuel demand will contract further looks much weaker.