Oil prices could double from current record levels to reach $200/barrel by 2011, EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Tuesday, calling on OPEC to do more to reassure the market about long-term supply potential.

In an interview with Spanish financial daily El Economista, Piebalgs said there was no current shortage of supply on world markets, but that OPEC needed to take more visible steps to show it could increase production going forward.

The EU's top energy official said uncertainty over OPEC's ability to respond to rising world demand for oil was behind the current high prices, which touched a record $103/95/b in New York Monday.

"The markets are very nervous. Prices are going mad because long term guarantees are needed that OPEC has enough resources to respond to the increase in world demand," Piebalgs said in the interview.

"When I arrived at the European Commission in 2004, a barrel of oil cost $52. In three years it has doubled. We cannot exclude that within three years, in 2011, it could be at $200. What I am saying is, partly, a joke. But we should not be surprised."

"We cannot rule out the $200/b because in the last two years we have all been completely wrong in thinking that what is now happening was impossible.

The companies, the International Energy Agency were wrong... When someone said we would get to $80/b, and then they said $100/b, nobody thought they were talking seriously. I remember that Goldman Sachs said it three years ago, everybody took it as a joke," he said.

"The only solution to get out of this situation is for OPEC to develop a predictable and transparent long-term policy of investment and supply."

"I hope that OPEC shows that we are not being left without oil. And that, in the medium and long term, it is capable of increasing its production."

In the short term, OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna this week appear set to leave current production limits unchanged for the time being, saying the current high prices are not due to any fundamental shortage of oil.

In the interview with the newspaper, Piebalgs expressed a similar view, saying OPEC need to tackle long-term concerns rather than any short-term problems.

"A small, timely increase in supply will not change prices because what is true is that right now there is no scarcity in supply and refineries are running at high levels. If everyone is investing in primary materials it is because there is an expectation that prices will keep going up in the long term," he said.

The official suggested OPEC should consider adopting a target range for oil prices again, a policy it followed with some success in the early part of this decade.

Setting a price band again, Piebalgs said, "would show that the organization with the biggest reserves is trying to influence the markets, which would be very useful."

Piebalgs said current high oil prices were "hurting" oil consuming countries. "The consequence could be, depending on the country, weaker economic growth or recession. Which is also unappealing for crude-producing countries."