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) 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), Britain's BP Plc (BP.L) and Spain's Repsol YPF (REP.MC) 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.

Oil companies have long sought more access to the rich fields of OPEC members without much success. A recent oil price surge has only increased pressure on OPEC to boost supplies.

"We want them to allow our efficient oil companies to have a role to play in the oil production of the oil producing countries," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at an emergency oil summit between producers and consuming nations in Jeddah in June.

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Tillerson said producing countries that limit investment had little incentive to lift barriers when oil prices were high, even though the price rise was a clear market signal that such measures to boost supply were needed.

"When the prices are high, the national governments ... don't see a need for an IOC (international oil company). They don't recognize the value an IOC brings," he said.

Tillerson said while Saudi Arabia was working hard to boost spare capacity, more could be done in OPEC to boost output.

He noted the oil cartel plans to invest $210 billion in oil production and refining in the coming five years while Exxon plans to invest $125 billion over the same period.