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http://africa.reuters.com/energyandoil/news/usnL16337780.html?rpc=401&;

OPEC worried by record high oil, but can do no more

OPEC has done its utmost to satisfy the world's demand for fuel and pumping even more crude will do little to halt oil's rally towards $88 a barrel, officials said on Tuesday.
There is no fundamental justification for a price run-up that has lifted oil from below $70 in mid-August, say officials from the group that pumps more than a third of the world's oil.


"OPEC cannot do much now," Libya's top oil official Shokri Ghanem told Reuters. "OPEC did all that it can."

At its meeting in September, with oil a touch below $80, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to boost output by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Nov. 1 to soothe consumer concerns of tight supplies and costly fuel.

But oil is now closing in on the inflation-adjusted high of $90.46 seen in 1980, with investors citing rising tension between Turkey and Kurdish separatists in Iraq, robust oil demand growth, tight fuel stocks and a weak dollar............