No oil shortage says OPEC chief
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Oil is still flowing in large quantities to the markets, al-Attiyah says.
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DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- The Iraqi war has not led to a shortage of oil on the world's markets, the head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has said.
"We are still seeing the oil flowing to the market in a big quantity and we feel there is no shortage," Abdullah al-Attiyah, OPEC president, told CNN in an interview Monday.
"OPEC managed very carefully and very successfully to secure the oil to the international markets."
Before the start of the war, the price of oil spiked at $39.99 a barrel with prices now hovering in the mid-$20-a-barrel range.
Al-Attiyah suggested that speculators had pushed up the price of oil and that there had always been plenty of supply to meet world demand.
"The price of oil, we see it dropping very dramatically since last week" and that shows there is more oil in the market than the world needs, the OPEC president said. "I don't believe that there is any shortage at this moment."
"My concern... is to watch the market very carefully," al-Attiyah said, "because, today I'm sure there is more oil in the market, but my concern is what will be happening when we see the price drop very dramatically."
