Oil kingpin Saudi Arabia today called for talks with consumer nations on soaring world prices and reiterated its readiness to meet any increase in demand.
At a meeting chaired by King Abdullah, the Saudi cabinet restated its view that the leap in prices that saw New York's benchmark contract hit a record $138.54 on Friday was unjustified by fundamentals.
But it added that it had asked Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi to 'convene a meeting soon of representatives of producer and consumer nations and firms operating in the production, export and trading of oil to discuss the jump in prices, its causes and how to deal with it objectively'.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, gave back 99 cents to $137.55 a barrel today. Brent North Sea crude for July delivery shed $1.88 to $135.81. Brent had hit a lifetime pinnacle of $138.12 and gained %10.15 dollars in value on Friday.
The world's leading oil exporter and the dominant producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel, Saudi Arabia announced last month that it would boost its output by 300,000 barrels per day to bring its production for June to 9.45 million bpd.
The state has come under huge US pressure to boost output to help end the volatility in world markets that saw New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, leap $10.75 a barrel on Friday - its biggest one-day jump ever.
During a visit to Riyadh in May, President George W Bush called on the Saudi authorities for the second time in four months to put pressure on fellow OPEC producers to boost production.
Washington has repeatedly blamed OPEC's refusal to raise its output ceiling for the five-fold surge in world prices since 2003. The cartel counters that the real reasons for market volatility are a shortage of refining capacity, speculation by traders and political tensions in the main producing regions.
