Opec's president vowed today to cut production to boost sagging prices, setting it on a possible collision course with consumer countries relieved at crude's slump from record highs.
Chakib Khelil indicated the cartel's desire to protect prices by continuing to cut output until they even out, two days after the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut output by 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd).
But opening the high-level meeting earlier, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that price volatility was "in no-one's interest" after a year which has seen prices lurch from record highs to historic lows.
"We will continue this reduction until the price will stabilise," Khelil told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of 27 oil producing and consuming nations in London.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia — the world's biggest oil producer — also spoke of the importance of holding up oil prices. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi again indicated he thought $75 a barrel would be "fair and reasonable", adding that anything lower could lead to more instability and would discourage vital investment.
Opec's chief, Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri, also urged caution over calls for lower prices.
"Low crude prices do not translate into equal lower prices at the pump. The price that the end consumer pays comprises significant amount of taxation. This is especially the case in Europe and Japan," he said.
For his part, Brown argued that price volatility was "in no-one's interest", adding: "Our recent economic history bears the scars of our failure to move beyond the traditionally adversarial relations between producers and consumers".
