Oil prices could climb up to 150-200 Dollars a barrel in the short term because of social tensions in the Middle East and the devastating earthquake in Japan, said Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, quoted by Ria Novosti.
“The increase up to 150-200 dollars a barrel will be based on speculation and will remain so for a short time, ” Kudrin said.
He noted that oil prices are unlikely to grow very much over the medium term.
The London quotation for Brent oil has reached at the end of February a peak of almost $120 a barrel due to investor fears that the tensions in North Africa and the Middle East will affect oil deliveries from these regions.
In Japan, oil demand could rise to offset the energy loss that would have been generated by the nuclear plants shut down because of last week’s earthquake.