OPEC: no oil shortage; investors abandoning US dollar

OPEC is ready to increase its output if the fundamentals of supply and demand justify such a move, but does not believe there is a current shortage of oil in the market, the cartel’s secretary-general Abdallah el-Badri said on Wednesday.

El Badri statement comes as a response to US president George W Bush currently visiting Middle East, call for OPEC to increase crude output to help cut the cost of energy.

“The president said there’s a hope that as a result of these conversations that OPEC would be encouraged to authorize an increase in production” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Wednesday after Bush arrived in Egypt from Riyadh on the latest leg of his Middle East tour.

“He’s worried about high oil prices and how they can negatively affect economies around the world,” Perino added.

OPEC Secretary General said that current oil prices do not reflect the market fundamentals of supply and demand, blaming instead persistent geopolitical unrest, the weakness of the dollar, outages in the US refining system and the growing role of speculators.

Mercopress