LONDON, 11 June 2008 — Saudi Arabia will host a meeting of oil producers and consumers in Jeddah on June 22 to discuss oil prices, OPEC Secretary General Abdullah Al-Badri told Reuters yesterday.
Al-Badri said he hoped producers and consumers could take measures to curb oil market speculation. Al-Badri appealed for calm in oil markets, saying the record price was unbearable and did not reflect any shortage of supply.
Oil producers and consumers met less than two months ago in Rome, but failed to produce any concrete measures to tame oil prices that have since surged $20 a barrel. The Kingdom is the only member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with the ability to boost output quickly and significantly.
Consuming governments have put pressure on OPEC, supplier of more than a third of the world’s oil, to boost output to ease the effect of high oil prices on their economies. The United Arab Emirates energy minister told Reuters in Calgary, Alberta yesterday that recent huge spikes in oil prices are “crazy” and unrelated to supply and demand fundamentals as markets are adequately supplied with crude.
“There is no shortage of crude oil in the market. Inventory levels are huge,” Mohammed Al-Hamli said after speaking at a conference in Canada. Indeed, the UAE has spare capacity and is “quite happy” to supply more oil, he said.
The United States expects to participate in a June 22 meeting, the White House said yesterday.
“It’s a positive sign that Saudi Arabia wants to take a leadership role on this issue. As one of the world’s largest producers and consumers, we expect to participate,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
