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Record-high international oil prices will keep rising until Western countries rein in their demand, Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italy's biggest oil and gas company Eni, was quoted as saying on today.

US crude hit $143 a barrel today amid concerns stirred by a lower global oil supply and tensions between Israel and Opec member Iran.

"The price will continue to rise until we see a correction in western demand," Scaroni told Italian newspaper La Repubblica in an interview, Reuters reported.

Scaroni said US consumers have already been making efforts to trim energy demand as they cut on car travel, opt for trains and buy smaller automobiles.

Read more: Upstream Online

"People who think that oil prices will go down once production is raised are wrong because there are indications the prices will remain high," the Arab Times quoted the ruler of the world's largest oil exporter, king Abdullah of Saudi-Arabia, saying.

He added that speculators and duties on fuel in some countries were among reasons for the high prices.

"Starting from the establishment of Opec, we have always been keen on keeping the price of oil at a normal level to reduce the burden on both the producers and consumers...We have nothing to do with the rising prices of oil in the world," he said.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said yesterday that top exporter Saudi Arabia stands ready to pump as much oil as its customers require, but supply for now was adequate.

Source: Upstream Online

The heads of some of the world's biggest oil companies today countered Opec claims that speculators were driving high oil prices, instead blaming a lack of new supplies.

BP boss Tony Hayward said the argument that financial investors buying oil futures were behind a four-year rally that pushed oil prices to new records above $143 per barrel today was a "myth". He said the problem was a failure of supply growth to match demand growth.

"Supply is not responding adequately to rising demand," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Repsol chief executive Antonio Brufau agreed. "The fundamentals in the industry are the significant reasons for having these prices," he said.

"We don't think that the financial markets are leading the speculation, probably they follow what other people fear as long term fundamentals," Shell chief Jerome van der Veer said. "I do not think that you can blame speculation for the oil price".

The three big oil companies did their statements as a reply to the OPEC claim that speculation is the cause of the record high oil prices.

Source: Upstream Online

One of the newest additions to ASPO International is ASPO Kuwait. They were started in 2008 and consists of mostly chemical engineers. ASPO Kuwait is lead by the engineer Ahmad Al-Majed. The group have already been interviewed i newspaper, radio and national TV.

Find out more from their homepage: ASPO Kuwait (some sections are still under construction).

Below you can see some excerpts from the "Good Morning Kuwait" TV-show, where they were interviewed.

Oil prices crossed 140 dollars a barrel for the first time in New York and London on Thursday amid a declining dollar and after OPEC warned prices could hit 170 dollars this year.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, shot up 5.50 dollars to trade as high as 140.05 dollars per barrel. In London, Brent North Sea crude for August jumped 6.05 dollars to 140.38 dollars.

The price of crude oil shot up on the new dollar weakness, which makes the dollar-denominated commodity cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies.

The president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil, said crude could hit a record 170 dollars this year owing to a weak US currency and geopolitical unrest.

"I predict probably prices of 150 to 170 dollars this summer," Khelil said Thursday in an interview with France 24.

Source: Yahoo News

The US Energy Information Administration said crude oil production from non-Opec countries will not be able to keep up with growing global demand in the next few years, forcing oil consuming nations to rely more on Opec for supplies.

In its long-term energy forecast, the EIA lowered its estimate of non-Opec oil production in 2010 to 51.8 million barrels per day, down 1.1 million bpd from last year's forecast. For the same period, Opec oil output was cut by just 400,000 bpd to 37.4 million.

Meanwhile, world oil demand in 2010 will be 1.5 million bpd less than previously thought at 89.2 million bpd, due to higher oil prices, the EIA said.

China will account for almost half the lower oil consumption, with the country's oil use cut 600,000 bpd to 8.8 million bpd, said Reuters.

The EIA said its forecast for India's oil demand in 2010 was unchanged at 2.7 million bpd.

Overall, world energy consumption is forecast to grow 50% by 2030, with demand from developing countries rising 85% compared with a 19% increase in industrialised countries, the EIA said.

Source: Upstream Online

Oil prices "will not come down," OPEC president Chakib Khelil said Tuesday, assuring that the oil cartel has already done what it can on the matter.

"OPEC has already done what OPEC can do and prices will not come down," Khelil told journalists as he arrived for a meeting with EU energy officials in Brussels.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs urged OPEC to do away with the grouping's production ceiling in order to provide relief to the market.

"In my opinion, there is no reason to keep ceilings on production," he told journalists.

"If there are no ceilings, markets will adapt much faster," he added. "In this respect we could expect prices to go down, not going up as the tendency has been till now."

Read more: France24

Oil producers cannot pump more without demand for extra supply, and at the moment that demand does not exist, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Monday.

"We cannot raise output -- whether it's OPEC producers or others -- unless there really is a demand on the world market," said Khelil, who is also Algeria's energy minister.

On prices, Khelil said: "It's impossible to predict. Anything could happen. All I can say is that prices will be high, and will remain high until the end of the year."

In answer to a question, he said he did not think oil would rapidly breach the $200 a barrel mark, adding prices would continue to perform their habitual "yo-yo" in relation to factors like geopolitical tensions and the dollar.

Read more: Reuters

Petroleos Mexicanos, the state- owned oil company, said its May oil output fell 10 percent from a year ago because of declines at its largest field, Cantarell. The declining production have caused an even greater decline in the oil export.

Crude oil exports fell 22 percent to 1.376 million barrels a day from a year ago. Mexico, the third-largest supplier of crude to the U.S., exports about 80 percent of its oil to its northern neighbor. The value of the exports rose 43 percent to $4.4 billion. Mexico exported 14 percent fewer barrels in April on output declines.

Pemex's output is ``at risk'' of falling more this year, leading to further cuts in exports, Mexico's Energy Minister Georgina Kessel said.

Read more: Bloomberg News

These event correponds very well with the Export land model, that was developed by the geologist Jeffrey Brown. This is also discussed on one of the worlds leading peak oil discussion boards, the Oil Drum.

The global hedge fund manager, George Soros, warned that crude oil prices are set to rise further and efforts to persuade producers to increase output will not work.

"Rather than expecting energy prices to go down somehow, we should accept that it must go further up first for us to be able to solve the problem in the long term" he said in an interview with Reuters.

"There are also huge opportunities in reducing energy consumption, but (crude) prices must go up first so as to encourage people to consume less," he later continued.

Read more: Reuters

One can only conclude that peak oil is an enourmous challange for the world, but it also opens many new oppertunities for those who are prepared and can offer the new solutions in the future.