OPEC is probably incapable of lowering the price of oil, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said, a day after crude reached a record.

“Cartels are not the institutions to lower prices,’ Kudrin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Crude oil surged $10.75, or 8.4 percent, to a record $138.54 a barrel yesterday in New York after the U.S. dollar weakened and Morgan Stanley said prices may reach $150 within a month. The price of oil has more than doubled in a year.
Kudrin also said he was “skeptical” about the ability of gas-exporting countries to set up a cartel similar to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that could control gas prices.
The governments of Russia, Qatar, Algeria, Iran, Egypt and other nations are considering establishing a new international organization of gas-exporting countries managed by a secretary general and an executive committee, according to a June 5 report in Algeria’s state-run news service Algerie Presse Service.
Former Russian President Vladimir Putin fanned concerns among energy-consuming nations when he said in February 2007 that Iran’s proposal to unite gas producers in a group similar to OPEC was “an interesting idea.” The European Union, which gets a quarter of its gas from Russia, has criticized closer cooperation among producers of the fuel.
(Source: Bloomberg)