Geopolitics adding at least $10/bbl to oil prices: Qatar

Geopolitics adding at least $10/bbl to oil prices: Qatar

Doha (Platts)--21Apr2006

World oil prices have not risen to record levels because of supply and
demand fundamentals, and are currently inflated by at least $10/barrel by
geopolitical concerns, Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said Friday.

Oil prices have hit record levels in London and New York this week,
buoyed in part by the escalating stand-off between Iran and the West over
Tehran's nuclear program.

Unrest in Nigeria has also played a part in the price rise, with more
than 500,000 b/d of the country's production currently shut in as a result of
violence in the Niger Delta region.

"It is not a problem of supply of oil. There is no shortage of supply,
the problem is the geopolitics," Attiyah told reporters in Doha.

"It is not precisely Iran. We have other things, we have Nigeria, it's
the geopolitics...it has added more than $10 in my opinion," he said.

Attiyah's counterpart from the UAE, Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli, said
OPEC ministers meeting informally in Doha in the next four days were unlikely
to take a decision on the group's crude output level, and would instead wait
until an official OPEC meeting June 1 in Caracas, the official UAE news agency
WAM reported.

"The meeting is to discuss with ministers the exceptional situation the
market is going through with prices at $74/barrel," Hamli said ahead of the
10th International Economic Forum being held in the Qatari capital.

OPEC is doing everything it can to supply the international markets with
crude, Hamli said, adding there was no imbalance between supply and demand
in the market. "OPEC always tries to find a solution," the minister told
reporters in Doha.

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