Oil tipped to hit $US150
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Oil tipped to hit $US150*
From correspondents in Tehran
June 09, 2008 08:25am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
THE price of crude oil will rise to $US150 a barrel by the middle of
this year, Iran's representative to OPEC has warned.
"I foresee the price of oil reaching around $US150 a barrel by the end
of the (northern) summer," the state broadcaster's website quoted
Mohammad Ali Khatibi as saying.
His comments came after New York's main oil futures contract, light
sweet crude for July delivery, on Friday leapt $US10.75 a barrel -- its
biggest one-day jump ever -- to close at a record $US138.54.
The rise was partly fuelled by a warning by an Israeli minister about a
possible military strike on Iran over its contested nuclear program.
But Mr Khatibi said he believed that prices might fall back slightly in
the short term after the $US10 leap registered on Friday.
"The single-day jump of some $US10 is not stable and we must wait for
markets to reopen tomorrow (Monday) to see what the price will be."
Iran, OPEC's No.2 exporter and the fourth biggest worldwide, has
rejected calls from oil consuming nations for a hike in the output quota
of the cartel, saying the high prices are not driven by fundamentals.
Iranian oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari has said the market is
oversupplied and a production hike from the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries would have no effect on prices.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also said oil is priced too low and
that the commodity "should find its real value".