MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Hoarding and speculation” considered behind oil price.

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) president Indonesian Energy minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the organization was increasingly “concerned” with the disproportionate rise in oil prices which almost reached 50 US dollars a barrel last Friday.

Last week US Treasury Secretary John Snow indicated that the US would not appeal to its oil reserves or cease to replenish them but warned that "current oil prices are excessive and do not reflect economic fundamentals".

"No one is pleased with energy prices, they are taxing the economy", stressed Mr. Snow. "We are very concerned with the high prices of oil and we will try to impede they keep rising", said Mr. Yusgiantoro adding that OPEC was considering inviting other non OPEC producers to get involved and help to cool markets.

"The commitment to bring down crude prices can come from OPEC and those who don't belong to the organization. But we also need help from the big oil corporations" emphasized OPEC' president.

In an extensive interview in a Swiss weekly Zaki Yamani, former Saudi Oil Minister warned that "mysterious intermediaries" are forcing the price of oil by "creating reserves and speculating" in the market.

"The enormity of oil produced and transported is significant, but demand is not so significant", said Mr. Yamani adding that "secret reserves are been built, that's the problem".

Although admitting he didn't have sufficient information, "in the business this phenomenon is called "holding on" or "missing barrel" and we must not forget that there's a great power guiding the world". "United States is suffering the high price of oil, and most leading and largest oil corporations are American. The three main companies could easily have netted supplementary reserves of 10 billion US dollars", indicated Mr. Yamani.

"It's hard to assess real consumption, which is not equivalent to demand. We've been through this in 1979 when the Iran revolution". "At a certain point the "majors" (oil companies) ceased to supply to the independent smaller companies and built huge reserves causing prices up and up. But when these reserves were opened, prices collapsed and we faced the oil crack of 1986", argued the former Saudi Oil Minister who runs in London the Center for Global Energy Studies.

Mr. Yamani also made a clear distinction with 1973, "when insufficient supply was intentionally created causing panic. Today we don't have that situation, there are rivers of oil and they keep gushing, but there are fears about Iraq, Russia and Venezuela. The current price is political and does not correspond to economic reality".

Finally Mr. Yamani forecasted that the "end of oil is near", and "hydrogen is coming".