OPEC Chief Warns of 'Unlimited' Oil Prices if Iran is Attacked

Unlimited price? Don't know what that means. The price will be very high, but there will be a price.

"We really cannot replace Iran's production - it's not feasible to replace it," Abdalla Salem El-Badri, the OPEC secretary general, said in an interview with IHT.

Iran is the second-largest producing country in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia. It produces about four million barrels of oil a day out of the daily worldwide production of close to 87 million barrels.

Badri also said that steps taken by the European Union and in the United States to cut dependence on fossil fuels meant that OPEC had no alternative but to take a cautious approach before going ahead with plans to invest up to $540 billion in oil production up to 2020.

"If we don't see the demand, we are not going to invest," said Badri, adding that there was real doubt over what amount of money OPEC nations would invest after 2012.

OPEC nations "don't want to spend their money on something they cannot use," he said.

OPEC nations contribute about 40 percent of daily worldwide production.