High oil prices caused by geopolitical concerns: OPEC

High oil prices are being caused by geopolitical tensions and not by a lack of supply, OPEC ministers said yesterday.
“This price is not related to demand and supply at all. It is only related to geopolitics,” Qatari Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah said on the sidelines of an oil industry conference here.

But Claude Mandil, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), an energy watchdog for rich countries, said that prices were too high and that world supply was “a bit too low.” “The oil supply is in our view a bit too low because we are in a period when stocks should be built and we are not sure that stocks are being built right now,” he told AFP in an interview.
Mandil repeated that the IEA believed that “it would be better to have a little more oil” from producers in general.

Attiyah declined to comment on speculation that some of the world’s biggest gas producers might announce the creation of “gas OPEC” production cartel at a meeting on April 9 in Doha.

Algeria, Iran, Russia, Qatar and Venezuela are to meet in the Qatari capital on Monday. “No comment. We have to wait to see what the others are thinking,” he said.

Mandil also said that he was “not so concerned” about suggestions that leading gas producers planned to club together to form an OPEC-style organization for gas.

Kazinform