US downturn may curb 08 oil demand rise: Khelil

Published Monday, February 04, 2008

By Agencies

Increased demand for oil in 2008 may not be quite as large as expected due to the US downturn but petroleum prices may actually rise due to the dollar's slide versus the euro, Opec President Chakib Khelil said on Monday.

Khelil, who is also Algeria's Energy and Mines Minister, told Algerian state radio that non-Opec producers were expected to meet extra world demand.

"The additional demand that we would have been able to have this year may be a little bit weaker -- because of course the Chinese economy could be affected -- but really not so much (weaker). So we are still counting on fairly considerable demand this year," he said.

"We expect that this demand will be satisfied by the non-Opec countries since at the moment it's the non-Opec countries which continue to raise their output a lot more than Opec countries." (Reuters)

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