According to PIN, on the sideline of the 19th World Petroleum Congress (WPC) in Madrid, Spain, Gholamhossein Nozari asserted current oil market condition has caused producers to doubt whether their investment in construction of equipments and exploitation of reserves can be useful.

"Consumers are also in such a doubt," he said. "The markets are well supplied and even oversupplied so the price rise is not because of a shortage of supply."

Nozari considered the decrease in the dollar"s value, political and geopolitical tensions and some threatening shadows in many regions as factors behind the recent instability.

The fact that current oil price levels have little to do with market fundamentals and are more responsive to issues such as US dollar weakness as well as political and geopolitical concerns, for the sake of market stability, the function of speculators in the paper markets needs to be addressed.

The minister made a proposal for the European countries to levy low taxes on energy consumption.

Giant oil companies are gaining a huge share of the benefits from the growing prices of oil that American ones are on the top of the list, Nozari pointed out.

Spain"s King Juan Carlos awarded the Special Award of the event to An Iranian researcher during the opening ceremony of the International Oil Congress.

Engineer Gholam-Reza Bahman-Nia"s project, titled "Taking Advantage of Solar Dew in Refining Industrial and Refinery Waste Waters" won special award of the congress.

Bahman-Nia"s project is aimed at solving the problem of water scarcity at offshore oil platforms and at industrial regions and oil fields at hot and dry regions.