Nicosia- Putting additional oil on the market would not do
anything to ease the bottlenecks in the US market which have been
driving up prices, but would lead to greater stock building, the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Monday.
OPEC Secretary General Abdallah al-Badri was quoted by the Cyprus-
based weekly Middle East Economic Survey as saying that while the
tight US gasoline situation was due to refinery outages and pipeline
problems, it would ease as refinery utilisation rose.
Asked whether the organization was prepared to consider additional
oil supplies in an effort to damp down high oil prices, he said, 'as
soon as we see refinery utilization reaching 95 per cent plus, the
gasoline situation will ease.'
'In OPEC we think adding more oil to the market will not ease the
situation and any extra barrels will be used to build stocks,' Badri
added.
Questioned on whether OPEC was concerned about the inflationary
impact of high oil prices and a possible reduction in medium-term
demand, Badri said there was no sign that inflation and economic
growth had shown much sensitivity to high oil prices.
He noted that while US economic growth had fallen short of
estimates at 0.7 per cent in the first quarter, it was now
recovering.
'Now I think it is recovering and recovering very rapidly. So
[economic growth] has nothing to do with the high oil price,' he
added.
Asked whether OPEC was concerned about oil prices above 70 dollars
a barrel, Badri pointed out that nearby Brent futures had averaged
just 61.72 dollars a barrel so far in 2007, with West Texas
Intermediate averaging 60.34 dollars a barrel.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story