Oil producers can solve supply woes: Exxon

By Tom Bergin

MADRID (Reuters) - Oil producing countries need to remove barriers to investment to ensure global oil markets are well supplied, but they are unlikely to do so as long as prices remain high, Exxon Mobil Corp's (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) CEO said on Tuesday.

Rex Tillerson told Reuters the world's ability to meet oil demand hinged on political, rather than geological, uncertainties.

"If governments are unhappy with the current supply-demand balance, they can change it," he said in an interview.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil had earlier told the World Petroleum Congress, which is being attended by about 3,000 industry executives, that producers shared consumers' dissatisfaction with high oil prices, which hit a record above $143 per barrel on Monday.

OPEC blames speculators, rather than a shortage of supply capacity for high oil prices, but on Monday the CEOs of Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Britain's BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Spain's Repsol YPF (REP.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) blamed instead a dearth of new supplies.

Tillerson said there was one way for states endowed with oil to ensure future supplies meet demand.

"Allow your resources to be developed to meet the world's energy needs," the CEO of the world's largest publicly traded oil company by market capitalization urged.

Ninety percent of global oil reserves are in countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, that restrict investment by international oil companies, Repsol CEO Antonio Brufau said.