DOHA, April 24: Opec decided on Monday not to change its crude output despite prices hovering at record levels as cartel members blamed the market frenzy on political tension and lack of refining capacity.

“No change,” Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters as he emerged from the informal talks on the sidelines of an international energy forum in the Qatari capital.

His Qatari counterpart Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya said there was no shortage of oil supplies in the market and blamed high prices on other factors.

“It is low stocks plus the fact that international refineries cannot process more crude. This leads to shortages in gasoline and diesel,” Attiya said.

For his part Opec president Edmund Daukoru, who is also Nigeria’s oil minister, said: “The market remains volatile with prices being driven more by geopolitical uncertainties and speculation than by supply-demand fundamentals.”

Kuwait’s Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Fahd al-Sabah said he still believed in the value of a proposal he had floated on Sunday to reactivate a standby oil facility of two million bpd last made available in December in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Katrina in the United States.

“I still believe it is a good proposal,” Sheikh Ahmed said.

“This will help the psychology of the market.”

Opec’s daily quota is about 28 million barrels.

But the tone of the meeting appeared to have been already set by Opec’s and the world’s largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

“The market determines the price,” Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi told reporters upon his arrival in Doha. “You know and I know that the reason for the price being where it is is not shortages of supply.”

But US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who was also in Doha for the 10th International Energy Forum, said that high oil prices were causing great pain to the US and global economies.

“Clearly these very high oil prices cause great dislocations around the world, they are very painful, they are very painful in every quarter of the world. That is certainly true of my country,” he told a press conference.

The three-day forum, which officially opened Sunday, has brought ministers and representatives of some 58 countries together in order to foster dialogue between producers and consumers.

But Bodman admitted that many US refineries were shut down for repair and maintenance following the damage they suffered in last year’s hurricane and that there was little producers could do in the short term to increase supplies given that they were close to maximum capacity.

“We have encouraged producing nations to continue to keep oil markets well supplied. I think they have done that to a large degree. I will encourage them to do more if that’s possible. There are plenty of incentives at these prices for investments to be made,” the energy secretary said.

“In the background of course there are fears of Iran and what the impact of that might be,” he said.—AFP