SANTIAGO, Nov 10: Ecuador President Rafael Correa, whose country is expected to rejoin the Opec later this month, said on Saturday he saw oil prices remaining high for some five or six years amid high demand from China.

“Oil prices will continue to be high for some five or six years because of high demand from countries like China and India and due to problems in Iraq,” Correa told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Ibero-American summit of Latin leaders in Chile.

Oil prices reached record highs of more than $98 per barrel this week and Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he saw crude prices continuing to rise.

Correa said prices would also stay high amid supplies that will remain stretched until new wells are brought on line.

“This new oil will not be available for extraction for at least another five years, but there are clear signs that new discoveries will come on line,” Correa said.

Ecuador, a small oil producer with an output of 500,000 barrels per day, was invited to Opec’s mid-November summit in Saudi Arabia, where government officials expect cartel members to approve Quito’s petition to rejoin the group.

“A return to the Opec will benefit Ecuador because of the privileged information in these kinds of groups and because of the high technology used by its members,” Correa said in the Chilean capital Santiago.

Opec, which supplies over 40 per cent of the world’s oil is made up of Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.