Thailand closely monitoring Iraqi events impact on Thai oil prices

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BANGKOK, June 17 — The Thai Ministry of Energy and oil producers and traders expect retail oil prices to rise in Thailand due to the situation in Iraq.

Pailin Chuchottaworn, chief executive officer and president of PTT Plc, said he was concerned with the situation in Iraq despite Iraqi forces’ attempts to protect its energy sources as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group was occupying areas in Iraq in the past week.

He said that investors shared the concern on the declining amount of oil exported from Iraq that was the second biggest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Mr Pailin said he told subordinates to follow up relevant developments closely and that no PTT refineries had bought oil from Iraq.

However, global oil prices made their new high in ten months and that would finally affect Thai oil prices, he said.

Meanwhile, Air Chief Marshal Prajin Juntong, Air Force chief and deputy chief of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO); who is overseeing energy policies, acknowledged PTT’s report on the possible impacts of situations in Iraq and he would convene a meeting to prepare measures to cope.

The NCPO pays attention to renewable energy.

ACM Prajin and members of his energy policy committee yesterday inspected the biggest raw palm oil plant, biogas production and biogas-fired electricity generation in the South.