Oil Prices Will Reach $100 a Barrel, Libya's National Oil Chairman Says

Oil prices will climb to $100 a barrel, Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp., said, as Arab oil ministers and officials gather in Cairo for a weekend meeting.

Ghanem told reporters that market conditions will determine whether OPEC decides to increase production quotas next year, without specifying a timeframe. Libya’s top oil official is in the Egyptian capital to attend a Dec. 25 meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“Oil will reach $100” a barrel, he said.

OAPEC, seven of whose members are also part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was established in 1968 to foster the development of the petroleum industry in member states as part of an economic integration plan among Arab countries.

OPEC, which accounts for 40 percent of global oil supply, decided at its last meeting in Quito, Ecuador, on Dec. 11 to maintain its production target of 24.845 million barrels a day, set in 2008. OPEC’s next formal meeting is scheduled for June 2011. (more)