Mercosur. Oil prices continue their inexorable climb. From P. Yusgiantoro, current president of OPEC (and Indonesia’s energy minister):

“There is no more supply, the oil price is very high, it’s crazy!”

Whereupon the price rose even higher.

Ali Bakhtiari, head of strategic planning at the Iranian National Oil Company (NIOC), comes straight to the point.

“Cheap oil is dead. You are never going to see oil priced at $25 a barrel again. These high prices, yes, they are exacerbated by Yukos, Iraq and so on, but more importantly they are a sign that we have major structural problems with supply.

“They are a sign that there is now no spare capacity for the fluctuations of the markets.”