Lack of capacity foils action on oil price – Libya

ROME (Reuters) – A lack of spare global output capacity means very little can be done to tame record high oil prices, the head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation Shokri Ghanem said on Tuesday.

“Very little can be done by anyone, there is not enough spare capacity to help,” he told reporters. “At a price of $115 everyone is producing what it can, equally there is no more demand either.”


Ghanem, also the head of Libya’s OPEC delegation, reiterated that he saw enough oil supply to satisfy actual demand, but said that in his view uncertainty dominated the market.

“The oil market is in a state of fear, if not panic,” he said. “There is fear over speculation, volatility, wars, peak oil, there is fear for both consumers and producers, fear on both sides.

Reuters