Warfare In Afghanistan May Send Oil Prices Up, Experts Say

The current military campaign in Afghanistan may raise the world oil prices to $25-27 per barrel, up from today's $21-22, Yevgeny Samoilov, CEO of Russia's Petroleum Exporters Union, said in a RIA Novosti interview Monday. According to Samoilov, this has to do with the negative reaction from some of the major oil-exporting Arab countries to the United States' air strikes against the Taliban. The Russian oil official said that as there is a strong possibility that the U.S. military campaign will switch over to other countries of the region, such nations as Iraq may cut off their oil supplies to the market. And as long as the warfare is underway, the demand for petroleum will keep growing. "All this will inevitably affect the world's oil markets," he concluded. Also, independently of the military campaign in Afghanistan, the OPEC is now holding consultations on measures to bring petroleum prices up.