IEA’s Tanaka Says OPEC Assures Consumers on Crude Oil Supply

OPEC has assured oil consumers of adequate supply in the event of a disruption caused by the unrest in the Middle East, the executive director of the International Energy Agency said.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Secretary- General Abdalla el-Badri assured that the producer group will meet any possible disruption through its spare capacity, Nobuo Tanaka said today in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The oil market is “very well-supplied” with OPEC production at current levels and it doesn’t need more crude, Tanaka said.

The Paris-based agency said there was no need to supply the market with more oil and that it was monitoring the spreading Middle East unrest closely following the events in Libya.

“The IAE stands ready, as always, to make oil available to the market in the event of a major supply disruption if alternative supplies cannot readily be made available via normal market mechanisms,” it said in a statement on its website.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ayesha Daya in Dubai at adaya1@bloomberg.net

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