KUWAIT CITY, 4 March 2005 — Prices of crude oil could surge to as high as $80 a barrel within the next two years but such a level would not last long, OPEC’s acting secretary-general was quoted as saying yesterday.
“I can affirm that the price of a barrel of crude oil rising to $80 in the near future is a weak possibility,” Adnan Shehab El-Deen told Kuwait’s Al-Qabas newspaper.
“But I cannot rule out (the possibility) of oil prices rising to $80 a barrel within the next two years,” he said.
“If the oil price rises to this level for one reason or another — for example, interruption of supplies from a producing nation by one to two million barrels a day — it is not expected to continue for long,” he said.
Shehab El-Deen said a price rise to between $50 and $60 a barrel for a period of two years or more will inevitably boost investments to increase supplies and lead to a drop in demand, eventually reducing prices.
In London the price of Brent North Sea crude oil reached a new record high above $52 per barrel yesterday on ongoing supply concerns amid a cold snap across parts of the Northern Hemisphere. The price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in April surged $1.32 to $52.54 per barrel in late afternoon deals. It smashed the previous record high of $51.94 per barrel reached Oct. 27.New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, soared $2.15 to $55.20 a barrel in early deals, the first time it had risen above $55 since late October.
New York crude hit a historic record $55.67 on Oct. 25.
World oil prices have nearly trebled from about $20 a barrel in New York at the start of 2002.
