Oil prices won't come down, says OPEC
* President is opposed to increasing supply
* UK petrol and diesel prices still sky-high
The president of OPEC, the cartel of the world's oil-producing nations, has said that the price of oil 'will not come down'.
Chakib Khelil, met with EU energy officials in Brussels this morning and told journalists that 'OPEC has already done what OPEC can do and prices will not come down.'
His comments show that OPEC is opposed to increasing the supply of oil to help bring record oil prices down.
OPEC's secretary-general, Abdullah al-Badri, said 'There is no shortage, the market is full of oil', and blamed 'other factors' such as speculators on the money markets buying oil stocks.
However, the EU's energy commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, said: 'There is no reason to keep ceilings on production. If there are no ceilings, markets will adapt much faster. In this respect, we could expect oil prices to go down, not up, as the tendency has been until now.'
The price of fuel in the UK is now 118.6p per litre for petrol and 131.9p per litre for diesel.
• High fuel prices have cause ferry operators between the UK and Ireland to slow their high-speed services by 15 minutes. There were hints that the services could be withdrawn altogether.
