ENERGY MINISTERS of advanced nations have expressed "serious concerns" about soaring oil prices and urged producers to increase production through greater investment and provide more information on oil supply.
A joint communique by the Group of Eight (G8) ministers, also signed by China, India and South Korea, vowed to boost energy efficiency yesterday, after oil prices posted their biggest ever one-day gain on Friday, deepening concerns about slowing global economic growth.
But the communique stopped short of the tough language demanded by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd. He urged G8 leaders to "apply the blowtorch" to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), which he blamed for the record rise in crude oil prices.
Crude oil leaped more than $10 (€6.35) to $138.54 (€88) a barrel in New York on Friday, a price that US energy secretary Samuel Bodman described as "shocking".
Ministers meeting in Aomori, in northern Japan, said: "Current high oil prices are unprecedented and against the interest of either consuming or producing nations."
The producers among the G8 said they would seek to raise production and called on "other producing countries to increase investment to keep markets well supplied".
Akira Amari, Japan's trade and industry minister, went further, calling oil prices "abnormal" and blaming lack of investment for the fact that "production levels have hardly increased over several years".
The meeting placed more emphasis on raising efficiency in consumer countries, with nations promising to form an international partnership for energy co-operation.
The idea, said participants, was to promote best practice by sharing technologies and by monitoring progress. Ministers also strongly backed the increased use of nuclear power, with only Germany dissenting. Britain's secretary of state for business and enterprise John Hutton said making unrealistic demands of oil producers was not helpful. "We are not in the camp of pointing fingers or apportioning blame."
Instead, there should be dialogue between producers and consumers - an arrangement that, he said, could be formalised when G8 heads of state meet in Hokkaido in July.
Mr Hutton said China and India should "not be demonised" for using fossil fuels; it was inevitable that growing economies such as theirs would do so.
The meeting's consensus that markets should be allowed to send appropriate "price signals" to consumers was partially undermined by signs that some countries remained wary of forgoing subsidies. Zhang Guobao, China's delegate, said: "We are taking very precise and delicate measures so we will not destabilise the government." - ( Financial Times/Bloomberg)
