LONDON: The Organization of Oil Petroleum Countries (OPEC) stands ready to increase oil production if the Egypt crisis cuts the flow of crucial supplies through the Suez Canal to the West, its Secretary-General Abdalla Salem El-Badri indicated Monday. El-Badri warned that "there could be a real shortage" of crude oil passing through the Suez. "If we see a real shortage, we will need to act," he told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in London. However, El-Badri stressed that "the market is well supplied" with strong inventories and "demand is less than last year" at this time. The OPEC chief added that he saw no need for an emergency production meeting ahead of the next scheduled gathering in Vienna in June. The price of Brent crude rose $1.59 to settle at $101.01 a barrel Monday on the ICE Futures exchange in London for the first time since 2008, as investors kept an anxious eye on Egypt and worried about unrest there disrupting the flow of oil from the Middle East. Brent is used to price oil in Asia, where demand is growing fast, and in Europe, where a cold winter is leading to high demand for heating oil. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate rose $2.85, or 3.2 percent, to settle at $92.19 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That marks a two-session gain of about 8 percent. Secretary General Abdullah Al-Badri told reporters in London that OPEC did not at this stage think it was necessary to call a meeting before its next planned gathering in June but added that the mood was changing due to the situation in Egypt. "Before the Tunisian and the Egyptian crisis, we don't see it (an extraordinary meeting). But now, I don't know if this crisis will escalate. I hope not," Al-Badri said when asked about chances for an OPEC meeting before June. Al-Badri confirmed OPEC ministers and consumers would discuss oil output policy on the sidelines of an international energy conference in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 22, but said a formal decision there was unlikely. "Riyadh is not an OPEC meeting. Nobody asked me to prepare anything, so I really cannot tell you anything," he said. Al-Badri said he did not expect the unrest in Egypt to affect oil flows through the Suez Canal or the Sumed pipeline. "I think that the flows will continue," he said. "We are watching the situation because there is some good quantity (at stake) and if there is a problem there we have to do something," he told reporters at a conference. "Inventories are very high and our spare capacity is also 6 million barrels. I don't see why we have this high price," he said. "The market is well supplied but at the same time if we see some real shortage we will intervene," Al
