OPEC not to blame for oil price leap, say ministers

"The price of crude oil was 'out of OPEC's control', Qatar's Oil Minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, said yesterday.

Crude prices were being affected more by factors such as economic growth than by how much oil the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries was pumping, the Qatari minister said in Isfahan, where an OPEC meeting was due to begin today.

Oil-market fundamentals did not support an increase in production by OPEC, which pumped about 40per cent of the world's oil, said Iran's Oil Minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. OPEC should not increase output in the second quarter, he said."

Fundamentals do not support increase = Current high price has nothing to do with actual supply.