UPDATE 3-Credit crisis adds to risk of oil supply crunch-IEA

(Updates with comments from news conference)

By Jane Merriman

LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - The credit crisis increases the risk the world's oil reserves will not be drilled fast enough to meet global demand growth, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.

The agency's World Energy Outlook for 2008 stopped short of sounding the alarm oil supplies could have peaked.

But it highlighted obstacles to accessing new fields that include the increasing dominance of national oil companies as well as dwindling amounts of credit.

Many investments are being postponed because of the credit crisis and its effects on global economic growth and energy demand.

"The financial crisis may have eclipsed the focus on longer term concerns about energy," Nobuo Tanaka, IEA executive director said at a news conference to launch the report.

"I emphasise the need to take a longer term view to avoid a worsening supply crunch."

For major international oil companies have been investing enough so far, but looking ahead, the IEA estimated the industry needed to spend more than $26 trillion in the next 20 years to ensure adequate energy supplies, an increase of more than $4 trillion from estimates in its 2007 World Energy Outlook.