OPEC MEMBERS REJECT ACCUSATIONS FROM CONSUMING COUNTRIES

OPEC members, rejecting the accusations from the consuming countries, have blamed speculators for inflating oil's rally and adding volatility to the trade. They have demanded further regulation of future markets to give a blow to speculators.

They also attributed the price hike to the weaker dollar and escalating geopolitical tension rather than the imbalance between supply and demand.

King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, owner of over one-fifth of the world's oil reserves with a strong say in OPEC, announced recently that the high prices were mainly the results of speculations and OPEC would remain powerless in curbing the prices.

Their reluctance for a production growth is mainly drawn from their concerns over the growth prospect in the international oil demand in the coming years.

Due to the increasing oil output of the non-OPEC countries and the widening use of the alternative energies such as biofuels, OPEC predicted that the growth of the global oil demand would slow down and therefore lowered its global oil demand forecast for the year 2030 to 113 million barrels per day, which was some 4 million barrels less than their 2007 estimation.

It is the current OPEC belief that the world's main oil consuming countries have had a downward trend of crude oil consumption due to their investments in the energy-saving technologies and alternative energies.

Obviously, OPEC members considers it risky if they invest large amount of money into their oil exploitation and refining capability due to the uncertainties in the future oil demand.