Sec. Bodman: Oil Producers Unable To Respond To Demand

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday that oil producers have “lost control of the market,” which is currently in hands of oil traders.

Bodman, speaking in an interview with CNBC, said the producers of oil “are unable to appropriately respond to the demands that the marketplace is putting on them.”

Bodman, who is in Baghdad and was being interviewed via a television link, also said oil demand will exceed supply for the next year or two.

“At least at the present time and for the foreseeable future, I would guess for the next year or two, we’re going to see demand exceeding supply,” Bodman said. “And we’re going to be dealing with a very emotional situation in that environment.”

Bodman said there is a crisis for American families that haven’t budgeted for higher gasoline prices, but he said the U.S. economy is absorbing the shock.

“I believe that we see that the American economy is quite resilient,” Bodman said. “It is surprisingly quite able to handle high oil and gasoline prices. But, you know, heaven knows…how long that will last.”