Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive officer of French energy giant Total, said in a recent interview with the Korean national newspaper JoongAng Ilbo that he thinks international oil prices will inevitably rise in light of growing demand from emerging countries such as China.
“As emerging economies such as China pursue the expansion of their industrial network and require more energy, oil demand will reach a point where it will be constrained … generating an inevitable oil price increase,” said de Margerie, who heads a company that posted sales of $180 billion last year and has operations in 130 countries. “The question is then: how quickly will oil prices increase and to what level? In my view, it is important that this happens progressively and slowly so as to support the efforts put by all countries into recovering from the economic crisis.”
The French IOC chief was in Seoul last week to participate in the G-20 Business Summit, which brought together corporate leaders from around the world.
In addition to a sharp uptick in demand, de Margerie said recent international sanctions against Iran will exacerbate the situation by limiting supply. “Iran remains home to the one of largest reserves of hydrocarbons and is a major actor in the energy industry. We hope that Iran will be able to, in the not too distant future, renew its relationship with the international community,” de Margerie said.
