Iran says crude prices will continue to rise in near term

Tehran: A senior Iranian oil official said he expected crude prices to rise in coming days with the approach of summer, a newspaper said on Saturday.

"In coming days we will witness another increase in oil prices," Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, a senior oil official, told Tehran-eEmrooz.

"As we get closer to the end of the current month and the... summer season oil prices are more likely to rise," Ghanimifard added.

Also yesterday, Iran's Opec governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi said the group did not see any need to raise output. "Currently, Opec does not see a need to boost its production," he told ISNA news agency.

On Friday, Khatibi said oil market was oversupplied, adding it was unlikely for Opec members to reach an agreement on any crude output change at an energy meeting in Saudi Arabia today.

Iran has often said it sees no need for Opec to boost output.

Oil rose towards $133 a barrel on Friday after plunging nearly $5 the previous session on China's unexpected fuel price rise.

With high fuel prices sparking protests worldwide, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter has repeatedly said the market is well-supplied

High demand to blame

High oil prices are caused by strong demand in China and India, speculation and a lack of refining capacity in industrialised nations, UAE Oil Minister Mohammad Al Hamili said.

The state news agency WAM quoted Hamili as saying yesterday, when he left to attend a meeting of oil consumers and producers in Saudi Arabia today, that such a dialogue was key to stabilising oil markets.

It said Hamili also believed that a lack of investment in refining capacity in industrialised nations was also affecting oil prices at a time when "global markets are suffering from a shortage of oil products not crude oil".