Brussels, 01/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - With oil prices having recently hit the 60 dollar barrel mark and possibly not stopping there, the director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Claude Mandill, recently sounded the alarm. "Everybody recognises the scale of the risk being run by world economic growth", explained Mr Mandill in a statement published on 29 June, going on to mention other factors to explain high oil prices: lack of capacity the whole length of the oil chain, from production to refineries and conversion, via the transport infrastructure, mushrooming demand from the emerging countries, the apparent lack of reaction on the part of consumers to the message sent out by prices, climate-related and geopolitical uncertainties (Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and Nigeria) and intense activity on the raw materials markets. "This is no time to be apportioning blame. Everybody, and the government in particular, must start taking their own responsibilities more seriously", Mr Mandill continued. According to the IEA director, the following actions would help to respond to the volatility of oil prices: 1) more oil should be put on the market, and this decision is essentially based on the goodwill of members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Mr Mandill says that he does not "share the point of view" of several OPEC officials, who "have recently suggested that there was no need for more oil, as the bottleneck was in refining capacities". "Even if it is difficult to increase refining throughputs, it is useful to have more oil in commercial stocks ahead of uncertain times, and the structure of the market, in contango (meaning that forward prices are higher than current prices), should eventually encourage this", he suggests; 2) the oil market need upstream capacities as well as downstream. "This will not happen overnight, that governments must start taking measures now to facilitate investment in the oil sector", Mr Mandill continued, adding that from the point of view of OPEC, governments must make their programme and their schedule to bring new capacities into service quite clear, whilst the consuming and producing countries must revise all regulations applicable to refineries, to make them more attractive. Furthermore, industrial operators must continue to invest in order to fuel the growing demand; 3) demand must react to the signal being sent out by the increased prices. On this, Mr Mandill welcomed the fact that the governments of the consuming countries had put energy efficiency high up the list of their national priorities. "More oil, more investment, more energy efficiency - that is how market forces should react to market signals. However, sometimes this reaction is slow. If it does not happen soon, with government impetus when needed, it will happen later, more painfully", Mr Mandill concluded.