The world is running out of oil quicker than it was being claimed by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has been underplaying an alarming shortage due the fear of panic buying, an IEA official has claimed.

“The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year,” The Guardian quoted the whistleblower at the IEA, as saying.

“The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today”s number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this,” he added.

The whistleblower at the IEA also said that the US has played a key role in making the IEA underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields.

“Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources,” he said.

A second senior IEA source said a key rule at the organisation was that it was “imperative not to anger the Americans” but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted.

“We have [already] entered the “peak oil” zone. I think that the situation is really bad,” he added.

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