India, China, Brazil Driving Oil Prices Higher: Obama

The growing demand for petroleum in countries like India, China and Brazil would be the major reason for increase in oil prices in the long-term, the US President, Mr Barack Obama, has said.

In his remarks on economy in Florida, Mr Obama said in the short-term, instability in West Asia is the reason for its increase.

"The biggest thing that's causing the prices of oil to rise right now is instability in the Middle East — this time in Iran. When uncertainty increases, speculative trading on Wall Street can drive up prices even more. So there are short-term factors at work here," Mr Obama said.

"But over the long-term, the biggest reason oil prices will rise is growing demand in countries like China, India, and Brazil," he said.

"Just think in five years, the number of cars on the road in China more than tripled. Nearly 10 million were added in 2010 alone. Ten million cars in one year — think about how much oil that requires. And those numbers will only get bigger over time," Mr Obama argued.

He said the US consumes more than a fifth of the world's oil, but it has only two per cent of the world's oil reserves.

"That means we can't just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. We can't just allow ourselves to be held hostage by the ups and downs of the world oil market. We have to keep developing new sources of energy," he said.

In 2010, the dependence on foreign oil was under 50 per cent for the first time in 30 years. In 2011, the United States relied less on foreign oil than in any of the last 16 years, Mr Obama said.

"Because of the investments we've made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled — and thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

"We're taking every possible action to safely develop a near hundred-year supply of natural gas — something that experts believe will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade," he said.