Problems in many Opec countries mean high oil prices are likely to continue for some time, an expert has said.
Crude oil hit an all-time nominal high of $78.77 (£38.83) a barrel yesterday, following the release of data which showed stocks of crude in the US were lower than expected.
John Roberts, an energy security specialist at sector analyst Platts, told BBC Radio Five Live that there were "strong underlying reasons" for the raised prices – despite the trigger being nothing more than "a matter of logistics".
"Suddenly you got a whole lot of US refineries coming back on line after outages and tightness and there wasn't enough oil around to put into them to meet the demand," he said.
Mr Roberts warned that high prices were likely to continue for some time because "you've got trouble in a whole lot of OPEC countries".
He explained: "You've got problems with Iraq obviously, you've got problems with Iran; they can't produce enough because one reason is they've got cheap prices at home; you've got problems with Nigeria, major strikes only a month ago, and you've got problems in Venezuela.
"In so many of the major countries there are big problems right now and that means they are not increasing production the way some of their governments would actually like to increase production," he concluded.
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