energy ministers representing egypt and cyprus on monday said they were deeply concerned about the potential for oil prices to climb above 100 a barrel it comes at a time when more than a dozen countries have urged their citizens to leave ukraine amid warnings of an imminent russian invasion international benchmark brent crude futures soared to a new sevenyear high on monday morning on the elevated geopolitical tensions the contract was last seen trading at 9386 down 06 for the session after earlier hitting a peak of 9616 us west texas intermediate futures meanwhile stood at 9259 roughly 05 lower the us and europe have threatened to sanction russia if it invades ukraine escalating fears of a possible supply disruption from one of the worlds top producers russia has repeatedly denied it is planning to invade ukraine dispute amassing around 100000 soldiers on ukraines borders speaking at an oil and gas exhibition conference in cairo egypt energy and petroleum ministers representing egypt cyprus israel and the united arab emirates were asked whether they expected oil prices to spike into tripledigit territory for me being professional i can see it happening but i dont want it to happen egypts petroleum minister tarek el molla told cnbcs hadley gamble at egyps 2022 it is on the way definitely he added cyprus energy minister natasa pilides agreed it was a very scary concept to imagine oil prices surpassing 100 a barrel it is actually quite tangible she added it is very difficult to deal with because on the one hand we have the tendency particularly in the last few months of subsidizing basically which is not the norm so we are in that difficult position where when you start doing that it is very difficult to stop it pilides said we definitely need to stick to our targets in terms of the energy transition but i would also add that natural gas has a place in that trajectory as a bridge fuel speaking at the same panel event israeli energy minister karine elharrar said it is a very hard question but i think if we dont want to be at 100 oil then we have to make sure that we have a diversity of energy sources the international energy agency has previously recognized natural gas as the cleanest burning and fastestgrowing fossil fuel but has cautioned that its longerterm use in a transition to netzero energy systems is uncertain to be sure the burning of fossil fuels such as coal oil and gas is the chief driver of the climate emergency does opec have a plan if russia invades you know me i am not going to answer the question uae energy minister suhail almazrouei told cnbcs hadley gamble when asked whether oil prices could surpass 100 a barrel i think what is happening to the market is a geopolitical tension and that is what driving primarily the prices it is very difficult to predict when it comes to geopolitics he added referring to the russiaukraine crisis oil producer group opec and its allies a group known as opec have struggled to ramp up production in recent months despite pledging to gradually unwind record supply cuts the uae is a member of opec when asked whether opec had a plan in the event russia invades ukraine almazrouei replied i dont think we need to escalate more than what is said what we hear is there is no intention for invasion and that i think is comforting i would be on that camp that is not seeing that happening he said adding that he hoped diplomacy between russia and europe would prevail