The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is exerting all efforts to stabilize oil price, OPEC President Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah said on Sunday.
Sheikh Ahmad, also the Kuwaiti energy minister, said the OPEC is producing 30.4 million barrels of crude oil a day and production levels exceed market demands to increase the market's strategic and commercial oil reserves, Kuwait's official KUNA news agency reported.
The hike of oil price is related to some psychological factors in addition to other factors, he said, affirming that OPEC was doing its best to resolve the crisis and meet US demands for oil by-products.
He linked the hike of oil price to geopolitical and climatic changes, fluctuations on the international oil market and shortage in crude refining process across the globe.
"These factors have substantially contributed to pushing the prices high," he said.
The climatic catastrophe now taking place in the United States, the globe's top oil consumer and high demands for oil products, such as kerosene and diesel, affirmed the fact that there is a major shortage, he said, adding oil refineries have also been affected.
Current prices of the crude are higher than real prices and there is a glut on the markets estimated at more than 1 million barrels per day, he said.
Source: Xinhua