OPEC: Weak Dollar, US Refineries, Geopolitics, Evil Speculators, NOT Supply & Demand Behind Prices

EDIT

“Let me be clear, the high prices which we are witnessing are not because of any shortage of crude oil in the market” he said in a statement emailed to Agence France-Presse. El Badri said the cartel was ready to pump more oil at any time if it was justified by fundamentals but he insisted there is no shortage of oil in the market, and that OECD oil stockpiles remain within their average range for the last five years.

El Badri statement comes as a response to US president George W Bush currently visiting Middle East, call for OPEC to increase crude output to help cut the cost of energy. "The president said there's a hope that as a result of these conversations that OPEC would be encouraged to authorize an increase in production" White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Wednesday after Bush arrived in Egypt from Riyadh on the latest leg of his Middle East tour. "He's worried about high oil prices and how they can negatively affect economies around the world," Perino added.

OPEC Secretary General said that current oil prices do not reflect the market fundamentals of supply and demand, blaming instead persistent geopolitical unrest, the weakness of the dollar, outages in the US refining system and the growing role of speculators.

These investors, he said, having turned away from the depressed US real estate and financial markets, have increased volatility in the oil market and pushed prices to an artificially high level, which is not justified by the underlying fundamentals of the market.

EDIT

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=12434&formato=HTML

any inherent limitation in supplies. But who should we attack next to get rid of THOSE evil people? Ms Bigmack

They'd think twice about putting their hands in that fire again.

Unless OPEC can't increase the supply, in which case the "underlying fundamentals of the market" actually do support the high price.

I'm sure we'll be hearing this same story over and over again from here on out. They might as well blame the high prices on Cheese Whiz® or some other random thing.

The price of oil topped $200 today because of a turnip shortage in Belize. In other news...