Abu Dhabi (Platts)--21Jan2008

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Monday the United States hoped for
increased oil supply from OPEC following his visits to OPEC powerhouse Saudi
Arabia and its Gulf neighbors Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

"We are hopeful that they will increase supplies," Bodman told reporters
in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. "I am of the view that there needs to be an
increase in supply in order to call the markets of the world well supplied."

He said the US Energy Information Administration, statistics arm of the
Department of Energy, expected consumer inventories to continue to fall during
the first half of this year.

Bodman said he was confident that there was enough spare capacity among
producers to cover an output increase.

"I'm quite confident that there is sufficient surplus availability,"
Bodman said. "I'm quite confident that it's doable."

Bodman also said the US would continue to fill its Strategic Petroleum
Reserve in spite of prices remaining high, describing the current fill rate of
around 70,000 b/d as "inconsequential."

Oil producer group OPEC meets February 1 in Vienna to review output
policy, which currently targets production of 27.673 million b/d for the
12 members bound by production pacts. US President George W Bush last week
used a Middle East tour that included visits to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to
ask OPEC to pump more crude in order to bring prices down.

US light sweet crude futures climbed above $100/barrel in early January
but have since fallen back by around $11/b and were trading just below $89/b
at 12:17 GMT Monday.