OPEC official sees no need for more crude

[jpak]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070525-0557-opec-oil-.html

LONDON – Crude oil supply does not need to increase because rising prices reflect bottlenecks in gasoline supply, OPEC's head of research said on Friday, despite calls from consumers for more crude.

“I think that pumping more crude into the market is not needed,” Hasan Qabazard, head of OPEC's research division, told Reuters. “We have a bottleneck in the supply chain and the bottleneck is the refineries producing gasoline for the summer.”

The comments came a day after Brent crude rose to a nine-month high above $71 a barrel and on the heels of calls from the International Energy Agency, which represents consumer countries, for OPEC to raise output.

Oil has risen from about $50 in January for reasons including lower supply from OPEC, violence in Nigeria that has cut output there and a drop in inventories of gasoline in the United States.

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