"The current oil prices are suitable and there is no need to hold an [extraordinary] OPEC meeting....Even if prices reach $200, we do not feel that a meeting is needed."
Iran oil minister Gholamhossein Nozari has said that current oil prices are suitable and that even if they climb to $200/barrel there is no reason for OPEC to meet, the oil ministry's Shana news agency reported Tuesday.

"More crude would prompt a more rapid crude stock build and would improve refining margins, allowing more distillates to be produced. In our opinion, this is a bull market driven primarily by demand potential outstripping slow supply growth -- notably non-OPEC. With no slack in the system, prices have had to rise to choke off demand growth and bring the market into balance."
World oil prices are fundamentally caught up in a "bull market" as a result of supply failing to keep pace with demand, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Despite OPEC's insistence that markets remain well-supplied with crude, the IEA said consumer countries were right to argue that more oil from the cartel would help to ease record prices.

Updated: May 13, 2008