Last week, the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based organization that the US and the other OECD countries are members of, issued a statement about oil at their quarterly meeting. It's short and worth quoting in full (emphasis mine):
The IEA Governing Board, at its regular quarterly meeting on 18-19 May, examined oil market developments and their impact on the global economy. Despite a near-10% correction since 5 May, oil prices remain at elevated levels driven by market fundamentals, geopolitical uncertainty and future expectations. The IEA Governing Board expressed serious concern that there are growing signs that the rise in oil prices since September is affecting the economic recovery by widening global imbalances, reducing household and business income, and placing upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. As global demand for oil increases seasonally from May to August, there is a clear, urgent need for additional supplies on a more competitive basis to be made available to refiners to prevent a further tightening of the market.
Additional increases in prices at this stage of the economic cycle risk derailing the global economic recovery and are neither in the interest of producing nor of consuming countries. Oil importing developing countries are most likely to be seriously affected by high oil prices, undermining their economic and social well-being. In these circumstances, enhancing consumer-producer dialogue is urgently important to reach both short- and long-term solutions. The Governing Board urges action from producers that will help avoid the negative global economic consequences which a further sharp market tightening could cause, and welcomes commitments to increase supply. We stand ready to work with producers as well as non-member consumers; in this constructive spirit, we are prepared to consider using all tools that are at the disposal of IEA member countries.
Global oil supply is tight because supply is more or less static, and has been for more than half a decade, and demand is increasing. The IEA's "solution" to tight supply is to shout out for someone, anyone, to find additional supplies and bring them to market. With the easy oil gone, exploiting new supplies doesn't always work out so well.
Even if more supplies are somehow found and brought to the market, the world just ends up in the same tight supply situation a few months or years down the line, as growing economies demand more oil.
The other approach, unmentioned by the IEA, is to find painless, or the least painful, or even pleasant ways to reduce demand. Individuals--and even most governments and multinational corporations--have no control over how much oil supply there is on world markets, but they do have significant control over how much oil they consume. Efficiency and conservation can both save money for the individual and, on a large scale, bring down energy prices. (Remember the campaigns ten years ago to bring down gas prices by not buying gas for a day? Try changing it to not buying gas for a month--and then going another month before the next fill-up. And then continue filling up just once a month. If half the drivers in the US did that, I bet it would swing world oil prices.)
The IEA staff wrote the book on "Saving Oil in a Hurry" (PDF), so they know how to do rapid demand management. I guess the Governing Board just doesn't want member countries' public to hear that The Party's Over.
And what sort of gobbledy-gook is "enhancing consumer-producer dialogue"? Dialogue about what?