PARIS (Reuters) – Oil consumer nations are set to pay a record $ 2 trillion this year for oil imports if crude prices do not fall, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday, undermining economic recovery. Crude hit $ 128 a barrel this month, only $ 20 short of its 2008 peak, and is up more than 15 percent since January, largely because of sanctions against oil producer Iran. “For the first time the world will pay $ 2 trillion of oil import bills,” the IEA’s chief economist Fatih Birol told Reuters. Birol said the bill for importing nations had risen from $ 1.8 trillion in 2011 and $ 1. …

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