Oil prices to remain unstable for months: OPEC head

Mon May 12, 2008 3:17pm EDT
 
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ALGIERS (Reuters) - OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Monday geopolitical factors, speculation and the value of the dollar would continue to affect oil prices for the next months or years.

"There is a geopolitical situation that the market expects to continue. You have the Iran crisis, the crisis that may develop with Venezuela, with the possibility of the United States imposing an embargo on Venezuela," he said.

"You have also problems in Nigeria," Khelil, who is also Algerian energy and mines minister, told Algerian state television.

"You have all those elements plus the recession problem in the United States and the strong fall of dollar, which has had a terrible impact on oil prices," he added.

"Therefore, there is speculation and geopolitical crisis. The market does not expect that to go away in the next months or years."

(Reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed; Editing by Christian Wiessner)

 
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