Official sees no easy way to lower oil prices

Reuters - Monday, May 5 08:26 pm

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Britain's energy minister said on Monday there are no easy solutions to high oil prices, including getting OPEC to boost output -- a push recently favoured by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"I don't think they can do a lot more," Malcolm Wicks said about OPEC producers during an interview with Reuters at a Houston energy conference.

"I think in an ideal world, if there was an easy way of increasing production, that is something we would welcome," Wicks said. "I don't think it's that easy, however. I think when you look at many of the oil producing parts of the world, you know, for example, there's not a lot the Saudis can do to increase production."

Last month, prior to meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington, Brown said Britain and the United States should work together to get OPEC to boost output among other joint efforts to improve world crude supply.

"I think Prime Minister Brown was coming from the situation where we're very concerned about the price of a barrel of oil and its impact on businesses that are dependent on oil," Wicks said. "And of course we're concerned about the ordinary citizen when they fill up their tanks with petrol or gasoline and what they pay. So that would be a common concern between the president and the prime minister."

In addition to topped-out production, Wicks said factors like the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and political unrest in places like Nigeria are also creating bottlenecks in world crude oil supply.

But the world has to get used to higher oil prices, he said.

"It's not going to come down to levels we've known in years," Wicks said.

He declined to say what the price of a barrel of oil should be, but added, "I think it's too high at the moment."

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; editing by Jim Marshall)

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