Nothing stopping oil prices from rising: IEA

Record oil of $117 a barrel calls for a demand response and a supply response, but for now there is little to stop prices heading still higher, the deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Saturday.

“We need both a demand response and a supply response,” said William Ramsay on arrival in Rome for talks between energy producers and consumers.
“I certainly hope we’ll start to get a demand response … that’s greater efficiencies and all those things we have talked about.”

The Paris-based IEA, which represents the interests of consumer countries, does not give formal price predictions.

But asked whether he saw oil getting even more expensive, Ramsay said: “There’s not much to get in the way.”

A sustained bull run, which set in around 2002, has been driven by factors including strong demand and chronic under-investment that has left a very limited margin of error in the event of supply disruption.

Reuters