Oil Market Is Adequately Supplied, Price Too High, IEA Says

Global oil markets are “sufficiently supplied” and excessively high prices are threatening to derail the global economy, the International Energy Agency said.

While “the market is sufficiently supplied as far as crude goes” there are “some problems” with oil product markets in Europe and the U.S. because of refinery closures, Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, said at a press conference in London today. Current “prices are far too high for the global economic recovery,” Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, said at the conference.

The agency, whose members hold strategic oil reserves to be used in a supply crisis, remains ready to act if necessary, van der Hoeven and Birol said at the conference, where the agency launched a new study on Iraq’s energy potential.

Brent crude oil futures traded near $113 a barrel today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net