OPEC

SPECULATION is the tool most used by Oil Companies and oil producing countries so that Oil remains volatile and therefore prices can be kept high...

Oil markets are extremely jittery ahead of the OPEC meeting in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday 05-12-2007...
Early in the session, crude oil prices sank to their lowest in more than five weeks as the market speculated that OPEC would agree to boost output by another half a million barrels per day.

However, crude finished the session higher by 60 cents at $89.31, as more traders bet on OPEC's reluctance to add barrels with oil below $US90 a barrel, so to most analysts OPEC is a leaf in the wind, there is no direction that the leaf may blow.

OPEC President Mohammed al-Hamli said overnight that ''the market is adequately supplied. There is no shortage.
Crude prices remain down more than 10 percent from the November 21 peak of $99.29 a barrel on widespread worries the weakening Europe and US economy and the dampening impact that would have on demand... This was yesterday because....Oil prices rose after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to keep production targets unchanged, rejecting U.S. calls to raise output. Crude oil for January delivery climbed $1.55, or 1.8 percent, to $89.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

So now OPEC are as much to blame as certain goverments and oil companies for a possible weakening Europe and US economy even more...