White House wants $25 a barrel oil

Economic adviser says it will take time for supply to expand and prices to fall by about half.

May 11, 2005: 5:18 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House wants to see oil prices fall by about half to around $25 a barrel although reaching that goal may take time, President George W. Bush's top economic adviser said Wednesday.

"We would like to see the price get back to around $25 a barrel, somewhere around there," Allan Hubbard, director of the White House National Economic Council, told Reuters. But he acknowledged: "It's going to take a while for the world energy supply to expand so prices can drop."

U.S. oil prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange were trading at around $50 a barrel Wednesday after surging to a record high above $58 a barrel in April.

An administration official said later that Hubbard was speaking "theoretically about a goal, but the White House is well aware that markets set the price for oil."

The administration has shied away in the past from giving a preferred target for oil prices.