FRANKFURT, Feb 5: The current rise in oil prices is outside the control of Opec, the organisation’s secretary general Alvaro Silva Calderon said in a magazine interview released on Wednesday.

In extracts of an interview to be published in the latest edition of the weekly WirtschaftsWoche and released in advance, Silva Calderon said that the current rise in prices “has nothing do with a tightening of supplies, but with fears of a war in Iraq. In that sort of situation, much of it is outside our control.”

The general secretary of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said that increasing supplies would not necessarily remedy the situation and bring oil prices back below 30 dollars per barrel.

“That wouldn’t help much,” he said. “There’s not a shortage of supply on the markets. Global supplies and stocks are sufficient.”

Furthermore, a rise in oil prices was not in Opec’s interest, Silva Calderon said.

“At over 30 dollars a barrel, our worries are the same as yours. The high prices hurts the world economy and that would hurt us, too, in the long run.”

Meanwhile, oil prices held firm on Wednesday after US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a key address to the United Nations, presenting photographs and tapes that he said proved Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Prices also found support from US inventory data showing a steep fall in stocks of US heating oil, as freezing temperatures stoked demand and distributors began to hoard supplies ahead of a possible war.

In London, benchmark Brent crude for March delivery rose 27 cents to $31.36 a barrel, while US light crude rose 22 cents to $33.80.

Oil prices were also kept firm by data showing a steep drop in stocks of US oil products.

“You could follow these numbers for a decade without coming across a set that are quite as stark as these,” said J.P. Morgan’s Paul Horsnell.

“The US oil products systems is on the verge of an implosion and it will take quite some time to get things back to normal,” he added in a research note.

Distillate stocks, including diesel fuel and heating oil, dropped by 10.3 million barrels to 112.1 million barrels in the week to last Friday, according to US government data.

—AFP/Reuters