Reuters: The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is likely to cause a rise in world oil prices, Iran’s OPEC governor, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, said on Tuesday.
TEHRAN June 29 (Reuters) – The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is likely to cause a rise in world oil prices, Iran’s OPEC governor, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, said on Tuesday.
“The Gulf of Mexico incident will increase the global oil price,” Khatibi said in comments carried by Iranian oil ministry website Shana.
“Concerns over the incident will automatically lead to promoting security in exploration operations and stricter regulations, and any kind of security promotion will increase the production cost.”
BP Plc’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest in U.S. history and has damaged the company’s reputation and hurt its share price. BP said this week it had so far cost $2.65 billion.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said last week the spill would make deep-water oil exploration and extraction harder and have a negative impact on global output in the medium term.
U.S. lawmakers investigating the spill have asked major energy companies for information on their response plans after it was discovered some companies’ plans had errors.
(Reporting by Ramin Mostafavi, writing by Andrew Hammond, editing by Jane Baird)
