Saudi Arabia said Monday it will soon call for a meeting between oil producing and consuming nations to discuss what it called the unjustified rise in oil prices. Oil jumped over $10 on Friday. Market fundamentals did not justify the rise in oil prices, said the Cabinet of top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia in a statement, adding that it asked Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi to call the meeting to discuss addressing the rise. “The Cabinet assigned the petroleum minister ... to call a meeting soon to bring together representatives of oil producing and consuming nations and companies operating in oil production, exports and sales to look into the rise in prices and its reasons and how to deal with it objectively,” it said. “The Kingdom as a main producer realized that the oil market has sufficient supply of petroleum and an increasing commercial inventory,” the Cabinet said in a statement. A meeting of oil producer and consumer nations was held in Rome in April. “The Kingdom works currently and in the future in coordination with OPEC countries and main oil producing nations to guarantee that the oil supplies are (sufficient),” it said. “It also works to prevent oil prices from rising in an unjustified and abnormal way that could affect the world economy and especially the economies of developing countries.” Saudi Arabia has boosted output 300,000 bpd to pump 9.45 million bpd in June, and Al-Naimi said last month the Kingdom was meeting all the demand for its crude. Minister of Culture and Information Iyad Madani told the Saudi Press Agency that the Cabinet decided to form a ministerial committee to study the issue of the delay by contractors in implementing projects and endorsed principles and rules for dealing with the issue. King Abdullah briefed the Cabinet on meetings and consultations made last week focusing on bilateral relations, and regional and international issues. The Cabinet also stressed the Kingdom's constant support to the Palestinian brothers in their struggle for a Palestinian state that preserves national unity and independence. The Cabinet was briefed by Crown Prince Sultan on the outcome of his official visit to Spain and the agreements signed there. It also underlined the results of the international interfaith dialogue conference in response to the King's invitation. Meanwhile, an Afp report said US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson welcomed Monday the call by Saudi Arabia for talks with energy consumer nations on soaring world oil prices and said surging world crude oil prices were a “problem”. Britain also welcomed Monday the Kingdom's call for talks with consumer nations, and described the current level of oil prices as “unjustified”, the report said. __
