Kuwait's acting oil minister said Sunday that supply and demand factors are not to blame for the soaring price of crude oil, which hit record highs above 117 dollars per barrel in New York last week, following a pipeline attack in Africa's biggest producer Nigeria.
"The level of stockpiles does not currently affect prices on the world market," Mohammad al-Olaim said on the sidelines of an energy forum in Rome attended by oil-producing countries, companies and consumer nations. "The fundamentals do not affect the market," he said. "If there is a need to raise" production, ministers of OPEC - of which Kuwait is a member - "will make a decision," he added.
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) president Chakib Khelil, currently touring Kuwait, said there was no need for an immediate hike in production. He said the cartel, responsible for producing around 40 percent of the world's oil, "does not need to raise output in the near future," according to Kuwait's KUNA news agency.
"Today, there is no need to get worked up and say, 'We must put more oil on the market', because the demands of oil consumers are probably motivated by political reasons," said Saudi Oil Minister Ali-al Naimi. "We have raised output over last year and the prices have continued to climb," he told the Petroleum Argus, an oil industry weekly. Calls for OPEC to raise output were distinctly muted, even if the deputy head of the International Energy Agency - founded during the 1973-4 oil crisis to defend the energy interests of 27 major consumer countries - said it was "unreasonable" for the 12 members of OPEC's cartel to "fix demand for the next 30 years".
William Ramsey later softened his position to say that "asking for more fuel today maybe isn't the answer," spelling out that that IEA is primarily asking producers to "increase their production capacity". "I think that prices are going to continue to rise," said Libya's acting oil minister Chukri Ghanem, the head of its national oil company.
The Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, said they did not like the price spiral. A Gulf official told AFP: "we don't like to see the prices at these (high) levels".
Nevertheless, he did not give the slightest hint of any measures OPEC could enact to make prices fall again. OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri reiterated Saturday that ministers from OPEC member states did not need to meet separately in Rome.
Khelil, for his part, said the falling value of the US dollar was responsible for the surge in prices. "When the dollar loses one percent, the price of a barrel of oil rises by four dollars," he said.