LONDON, Nov 14: World oil prices surged on Wednesday as Opec chief Abdallah al-Badri rejected US calls for the cartel to increase output to help cool the market.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, rocketed $2.20 to $93.37 per barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for December delivery soared $2.04 to $90.87 per barrel.
Crude futures had closed down more than $3 on Tuesday after the International Energy Agency lowered its global demand forecast for crude.
A week ago, New York’s main contract struck an historic peak of $98.62 and Brent raced to an all-time high of $95.19 on fears of tight energy supplies in the United States, the world’s biggest energy user.
On Wednesday, Badri, secretary general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said a final decision on output would be made by the oil ministers at a meeting in Abu Dhabi next month.
“At this time, frankly we don’t see that we need to add more oil in the market,” he told a press conference in Riyadh ahead of a rare weekend Opec summit to discuss long-term oil supplies.
“There is a plenty of oil in the market. There is no shortage of oil,” Badri insisted in response to a question about a decline in US and Japanese oil inventories in the past few weeks and calls by Washington to raise output.
Speaking in Rome on Wednesday IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka called on oil producers “to react” to current levels of crude prices.
“We wish producing countries to react to the current market situation,” Tanaka said in the Italian capital, where he is to attend a world energy conference on Thursday.
The IEA in a monthly report published on Tuesday said spikes in world oil prices could be losing momentum as demand declines and Opec output picks up.
The IEA, an energy policy adviser to major developed countries, also lowered its global oil demand forecast for the fourth quarter of this year.—AFP
