Crude oil and natural gas are increasingly becoming tools for political
pressure for producing countries, said Fatih Birol, chief economist of
the International Energy Agency, in an interview published Friday in
Germany daily Die Welt.
"There has been a very dangerous trend in the past four,
five years that oil and gas are increasingly becoming political
instruments. This is bad news for global politics," Birol is quoted as
saying.
He commented on a question referring to remarks made by
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Chavez said a speech at last
Saturday's OPEC summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries must echo its values at the time of
its creation and "assert itself as an active political agent."
Birol also said he doesn't think that speculation is the
main driver of increasing oil prices. Speculation only intensifies a
situation that emerged in light of "scarcity and geopolitical risks",
the paper quotes him as saying.
Birol added that western oil companies, whose oil reserves
are declining, are in an "identity crisis" and are at risk of losing
their basis for business, projecting "very serious difficulties" for
the oil majors in coming years.
"There are huge reserves but these predominantly are located
in countries of the Middle East," Birol said, adding that western oil
companies don't have access to those reserves.