VIENNA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Faith Birol, chief economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), called on here Wednesday the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase its output in order to meet the demand for the oil and restrain the soaring oil prices.
Birol said at a press conference that he could not agree with OPEC's recent viewpoints that the current crude oil supply was sufficient and the soaring oil prices was mainly driven by speculation.
He said he believed that the current output in the oil producing countries was insufficient and could not meet the demand of the international oil market.
Meanwhile, he stressed that OPEC should increase its output as soon as possible and help the IEA to stabilize the oil prices, adding that in the long run, the prices over 100 U.S. dollars per barrel was not a good thing for the oil producing countries.
Birol pointed out that the main impetus of the current overhigh oil prices was not the speculation, which played just a stimulative role, but the unbalanced supply and demand, which caused the international oil market very sensible to any tiny incident.
Furthermore, he urged the consuming countries to take effective measure to restrain the strong consumption of oil productions.
He said if the oil producing side would not increase output and the consuming side would not restrain the growth of consumption, the oil prices could not fall down in the next several months, and even in several years could not drop to the same level as before.
Birol said at a press conference that he could not agree with OPEC's recent viewpoints that the current crude oil supply was sufficient and the soaring oil prices was mainly driven by speculation.
He said he believed that the current output in the oil producing countries was insufficient and could not meet the demand of the international oil market.
Meanwhile, he stressed that OPEC should increase its output as soon as possible and help the IEA to stabilize the oil prices, adding that in the long run, the prices over 100 U.S. dollars per barrel was not a good thing for the oil producing countries.
Birol pointed out that the main impetus of the current overhigh oil prices was not the speculation, which played just a stimulative role, but the unbalanced supply and demand, which caused the international oil market very sensible to any tiny incident.
Furthermore, he urged the consuming countries to take effective measure to restrain the strong consumption of oil productions.
He said if the oil producing side would not increase output and the consuming side would not restrain the growth of consumption, the oil prices could not fall down in the next several months, and even in several years could not drop to the same level as before.
