The Chairman of Libya's
National Oil Corporation, or NOC, Shokri Ghanem said Monday oil prices will
likely rise as high as $110 a barrel in 2011 and fall as low as $90 a barrel as
the global economy continues on its path to recovery.
"The price for the next year will be always hovering around $100-$110 a
barrel, I think oil prices will break the $100 a barrel barrier in January and
will be between $90-$110 for next year," Shokri Ghanem told Zawya Dow
Jones by telephone from his office in Tripoli,
Libya.
He added that in 2011 oil prices will be driven by continued economic growth,
in particular from China, India and Brazil, among other factors.
"Prices will be driven by demand being better than expected as the world
economy improves, in China
and India and Brazil
consumption will increase and many oil producers are reaching their peak, so
supply may go down," Ghanem said.
Ghanem has long said that he would prefer to see oil prices at $100 a barrel.
But other leading members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries,
including Saudi Arabia, have advocated somewhat lower prices. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi Friday reiterated that he sees $70-$80 a
barrel as a good range for oil prices.
Many analysts now project that oil prices will hit $100 a barrel in 2011. OPEC
decided recently to maintain its current production-ceiling quota system, but
some analysts think the organization will face more pressure to raise
production in 2011 if prices continue to rise.
New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in
February traded at $91.43 a barrel at 0541 GMT, down $0.08 in the Globex
electronic session. February Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.43 to
$94.20 a barrel.
Nymex crude, however, could weaken next year due to high supplies, according to
analysts at JBC Energy. Ghanem said OPEC "will be cautious" to avoid
oil prices falling too low and so may be driven to adhere more strictly to
their quotas and decisions taken by the organization. OPEC's quota-bound
members in November had a 52% compliance rate with existing OPEC policy, according
to a Dow Jones survey, and have been consistently producing above quota in
recent months.
Regarding high inventories, Ghanem said the oil market has not reflected oil
fundamentals for some time and prices are now driven by a mosaic of factors.
"Factors that constitute the basis of oil price are not only fundamentals
but dollar prices, speculation and commodity prices and this will be the case
in 2011," Ghanem said.