LONDON: Oil prices climbed on Wednesday ahead of the weekly US energy reserves report as the OPEC crude producers cartel called on the United States to stop badgering its members to increase output.
New York s main oil contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, added 39 cents to $141.36 a barrel.
Brent North Sea oil for August advanced 69 cents to also stand at $141.36.
OPEC secretary general Abdallah El-Badri said in an interview published Wednesday that US authorities should stop harassing the organization’s member nations to pump more crude.
As the world s major power, I want them to stop harassing OPEC countries, he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais, when asked about a move by the US Congress to allow the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for conspiring to restrict supplies or drive up prices.
With the boycott of Libya, the boycott of Iran and the problem created in Iraq, there are five to six million barrels per day lacking on the market, the Libyan official said.
He also argued that sky-high oil prices were not due to the myth of the lack of supplies – as Western nations contend – but to speculation sparked by the subprime home loan crisis in the United States.
In reality, it s all quite simple to explain: the subprime crisis last summer in the United States had a bad effect on stock markets. Investors are looking for other (financial) products and commodities have become the most attractive for speculation, El-Badri said.
Prices had rocketed to record highs on Monday on the back of tensions over oil producers Iran and Nigeria, and as the dollar remained weak against other major currencies, traders said.
London Brent oil scored an all-time high of $143.91 and New York enjoyed a life-time peak of $143.67.
Traders eyed simmering tensions over key crude producer Iran amid speculation that Israel might be planning a military strike against the country s nuclear sites.
Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said Wednesday that Iran would react fiercely to any attack against it, which he warned would cause radically higher crude prices.
Iran, if there were any kind of activity of any sort, is not going to be quiet and would react fiercely, he told reporters on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid, when asked what Tehran would do in the event of an attack. -AFP
