Qatar believes high oil prices are market-manipulated

[Dover]

Qatar believes high oil prices are market-manipulated

27-09-04 The running high oil prices are market manipulated and OPEC has no role in it, Qatari Minister of Energy and Industry said. Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah told after delivering a keynote address at the 10th annual Energy Conference on Gulf Oil and Gas, organised by the Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), that there are no political strings attached to the high oil in the international markets, but it is more a market manipulated situation for which OPEC cannot be held responsible.
"I do not think there is any kind of oil shortage, there are no long queues at gas stations," said Al Attiyah who is also Qatar's Second Deputy Prime Minister. "Further talks in this regard will take place in Cairo in December when OPEC will be having an extra ordinary meeting to discuss the issue," he added.

In his keynote address at the two-day seminar in which several leading experts from the international energy sectors are attending, Al Attiyah stressed upon the balanced role Gulf oil producing countries have to play in providing regular supplies to the consumer markets and at the same time paying equal attention to the development of human resources and the development of right infrastructure. He said the current high oil process do not reflect the supply and demand situation nor the availability of this very important natural source of energy, on which the world depends on.
"Our oil reserves are considered largest in the world and we are responsible to supply the growing demand of this important natural product in a balanced manner," he said...cont'd

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/frame_ntm_news.htm

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. He is exactly correct.

What you see right now is a battle for primacy over the world's oil and control of the pricing structure. The aim is to break the back of OPEC, and put control in the hands of The Big 3 and some few others. To this point, OPEC has been losing badly.

How could they win?

Turn off the oil. But, in that is the reason for Iraq, right now. Projection of force into that region. For all the faults of that force, it is there, and it is there for a larger reason than Saddam Hussein. It is there to communicate the fact that the intent is for all the petroleum reserves of the region to be controlled from outside, not within.

At some point, the OPEC ministers will completely recognize these facts and then the real game will begin. It will not be pretty.