Qatar's oil minister said on Saturday instability and not shortage of supply was behind the rise in crude oil prices to 21-year highs.
"The market today is not under a shortage of supply but the market is mainly under fear...pressure," Abdullah al-Attiyah told Reuters.
"We are already increasing our production but the market will not absorb it," he said in reference to a call by Saudi Arabia to increase Opec production.
Attiyah said he estimated Middle East instability was adding an $8 premium to the price of one barrel of crude oil, which stood in New York on Friday at $41.50.
Opec is scheduled to meet in Amsterdam next week ahead of a scheduled meeting in Beirut on June 3 to decide on production policy. Some members, including top producer Saudi Arabia, have called for the cartel's output quotas to be raised to help cool prices that could hurt the economies of consumer nations.
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