What's behind record oil prices?

Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: March 05, 2008 05:57:53 PM

WASHINGTON — Record high oil prices notwithstanding, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Wednesday that its members wouldn't boost production to rescue a U.S. economy that's suffering from what it labeled as self-inflicted "mismanagement."

"If the prices are high, definitely they are not (high) due to a lack of crude," Chakib Khelil, OPEC's president, said in Vienna, Austria, where the 13-member cartel met to determine what it considered the right level of production.

Global oil prices, meanwhile, continued their upward climb into record territory. Contracts for April delivery of light, sweet crude oil shot up $5 a barrel on a surprise dip in U.S. inventories, settling at $104.52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.