The oil ministers of Iran and the United Arab Emirates said Tuesday that oil markets are well supplied despite crude prices hovering well over $50 a barrel. "The oil market is well supplied, it may be oversupplied," said Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, who was in Trinidad for a natural gas exporters conference. Iran and the UAE are both members of Opec. Oil supplies in the United States, the world's largest energy consumer, are near three-year highs as the Organisation of the Petroleum Countries has boosted production, according to recent US government data.
Oil tanker tracker Petrologistics said Tuesday that Opec oil producers are pumping 30.4 million barrels per day, up 700,000 bpd from March. Opec is looking to boost global oil stocks in the second quarter ahead of an expected demand surge later in the year. "The market is very well supplied. If you need more oil we'll give you more," said UAE Oil Minister Mohamed al-Hamili.
US oil prices have dropped nearly $5 a barrel since hitting a record of $58.28 a barrel earlier this month on strong demand from China and India as well as tanker and refinery bottlenecks.
Still, US oil futures were trading well above $53 a barrel Tuesday morning on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up about 25 percent since the beginning of the year.
US President George W. Bush met on Monday in Texas with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah to discuss oil prices. The kingdom, the world's leading oil producer, is the de facto leader of Opec. Adel al-Jubeir, a foreign affairs adviser to the crown prince, said after attending the meeting that world oil supplies were adequate, but the kingdom was willing to provide as much crude oil as buyers wanted.
"We've done everything we can do," said Iran's Zanganeh. "The market should not expect everything to be done by Opec."
However, Zanganeh said Opec did not want to see oil prices remain so high that demand would eventually be hurt. "We don't want to see such a reaction from the consuming side."