“We don’t assess the supply and demand equation as a function of price per se,” US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman said.

“We look at satisfying consumer demand.”

“The focus still must be on making sure that the existing producers produce adequate quantities to meet current demand.”

While US oil prices have fallen back under $90 a barrel, President Barack Obama’s administration has played an active diplomatic role to keep a lid on prices so they do not threaten the economic recovery.

“When it comes to international diplomacy, we have very strong partnerships with oil producers and consumers around the world,” Poneman said.

He said oil diplomacy, however, should be integrated into the country’s overall strategy of reducing its dependence on imported oil by 30 percent by 2020, a strategy outlined by by Obama in March. Such a goal has eluded his predecessors.

“We intend to do that through the responsible, environmentally sound development of our own natural gas and oil resources, which we are very energetically pursuing,” Poneman said.

The US consumed almost 20 million barrels of oil a day in 2010, of which roughly half was imported.

Poneman said the US was hopeful that the global shock to oil supplies from the Libyan turmoil would soon be reversed.

“We are still recovering from the loss of in the order of 1.5 million barrels per day from Libya,” he said. “We are hoping that is going to come back sooner rather than later, thankfully now that the new government is taking the reins.”

He said the US was talking with all major oil-producing nations, both inside and outside OPEC, to ensure markets were well supplied.

“We are in continuing, robust diplomatic engagement with consumers and producers alike, with a consistent message to make sure that we are satisfying global demand and that producers are making the quantities available to do that,” he said.

Poneman said the US was encouraging Iraq to adopt a much-delayed law on hydrocarbons that investors see as key to stability.

The new law has been in the making for years but has faced opposition over who controls the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, some in areas disputed by ethnic Arabs and Kurds and and some in Iraq’s semi-autonomous north.

“We’ve been very encouraging of Iraqi efforts to increase their oil production, with tenders that have been offered and taken up by a number of companies, including US-based oil producing companies,” Poneman said.

“They’re up to a point of 2.6 million barrels per day of production, over 2 million barrels of which they’re exporting. That’s moving in the right direction.

“The next things we need to do are to continue to make sure that the pipeline infrastructure that’s needed to get that oil to market is enhanced,” he said.

Poneman was in Kazakhstan attending a conference on nuclear nonproliferation. The Central Asian country voluntarily surrendered the nuclear arsenal that it inherited after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Poneman said he expected “existing players” in the uranium enrichment market to make up a shortfall in global supply when a 20-year nuclear fuel pact between the United States and Russia expires in 2013.

The so-called ‘Megatons to Megawatts’ program, on which Poneman has worked under several US administrations, is recycling the equivalent of 20,000 Soviet-era nuclear warheads to create enough uranium to power the US for two years.

“It shows how you can harness the power of the commercial marketplace to drive a national security imperative,” Poneman said.

“One in every ten American light bulbs is fueled by material that used to be targeted on American cities on the top of missiles.”

Russian supplies from old warheads are key in the global uranium market, accounting for 13 percent of world supply and helping to fill a gap from mined output.

The Kremlin, however, has shown little appetite for renewing the deal.

“The end of that deal will create headroom in the marketplace,” Poneman said.

“The question will be how that shortfall is made up by other sources of production... I believe that the existing players in the enrichment market will likely step up and try to satisfy that demand.”

He added: “When that is done, we are going to continue to have a robust engagement with Russia.”