UK welcomes oil price summit

Saudi Arabia's plans for an oil-price summit to discuss “unwarranted” recent rises have been quickly welcomed by 10 Downing Street.

 The Kingdom said it wanted to bring producing countries and consumers together as well as working with OPEC to “guarantee the availability of oil supplies now and in the future.” Saudi Arabian Information and Culture Minister Iyad Madani said there was “no justification for the current rise in prices” which saw them spike to nearly 140 US dollars-a-barrel last Friday.

“The Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) welcomes this announcement from Saudi Arabia, which the Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks will discuss when he visits Saudi Arabia later this week,” Number 10 said late on Monday.

“This initiative echoes the call from the British Government for enhanced dialogue and meetings between oil producer and consumer nations.” “As the Saudi minister has said, current oil prices are unjustified.

We will do everything possible to ensure there is a co-ordinated international approach to deal with both the demand and supply issues in the oil market, which is why we have asked for this to be put at the top of the EU and G8 agendas,” Downing Street added.