Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) today ruled out any immediate hike in supplies to cool crude oil prices that have neared $100 per barrel but said it was not comfortable with the spike, and the rise in demand from China and India was not to be blamed for it.OPEC, which represents nations producing 40% of world oil, said it was committed to meeting all the energy demand of the world, especially developing nations like India, and assured it would not use oil as a political weapon."We welcome (economic) growth in China and India... they have the resources and capability to raise the living standard of their (vast) population, and OPEC is ready to provide them with the energy they need," OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri told a news conference here.He laid the blame for the surge in oil prices to geo-political reasons, and the inability of refineries in the US to produce more fuel. "China and India are not to be blamed for this price of today. Some other factors contribute to this price - not China and India."International Energy Agency (IEA) had, last week, stated that runaway energy demand, particularly in China and India, will have "alarming" consequences, including higher oil prices, threats to supplies and the acceleration of climate change.India has rejected the IEA contention saying fuel consumption was just over 5%. "Our consumption growth is way lower than the ones elsewhere in the world. High oil prices are not a factor of demand in India but because of speculative trading," Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan said. (Reporting by Ammar Zaidi)
