Brown urges oil producers to counter price surge

|PIC1|Prime Minister Gordon Brown will sound the alarm on Tuesday over surging energy costs, saying oil producing countries must act to counter high prices.

Brown's comments, to be made to a business audience, show his concern that the world economy is being squeezed by inflation in food and energy prices at the same time as it deals with the fallout from the global credit crunch.

"With the oil price now at $100 a barrel, both oil producing and consuming countries share common interests for the stability of the global oil market," Brown will say in the speech at investment bank Goldman Sachs in London.

"The market needs to be adequately supplied and oil-producing countries have their responsibility to respond to higher oil prices," Brown will say, according to excerpts of his speech released in advance.

Brown appeared to be encouraging oil producers to open the taps to calm surging prices.

However, some OPEC ministers do not accept that high oil prices are related to any shortage of supply.

On April 10 Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, said oil markets were well-supplied.

"I'm not going to dump crude on the market," Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said.

On Monday U.S. crude oil futures rose sharply to just below the record of $112 a barrel reached last week.

Brown will repeat his call for urgent action on an international strategy to counter soaring food prices, including examining the impact of biofuel production on food prices. Rising food prices have sparked riots in some poor countries.

Brown was also due to meet top bank executives in London on Tuesday to discuss the global financial crisis before he travels to the United States for talks with President George W. Bush.

PLUNGING RATINGS

The financial crisis and falls in house prices have sent Brown's poll ratings plunging less than a year after he took over from Tony Blair as prime minister.

A Financial Times poll on Monday showed Brown is less trusted than any other major western European leader in being able to steer his country through the financial crisis.

Brown pledged on Monday to devote all his efforts to keeping the British economy moving forward.

In his speech, Brown will insist that while no country can insulate itself from the turmoil, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Britain would be the fastest growing of the Group of Seven leading economies this year.

The IMF last week cut its growth forecasts for Britain, together with those of most other industrial countries.

The under-pricing of risk, inadequate credit rating services and banks' failure to thoroughly disclose write-offs had reduced confidence in the global economy, Brown will say.

On the oil market, he will say there is a need for a better understanding between producer and consumer countries of the implications of higher oil prices, including at next week's meeting in Rome of the International Energy Forum, which brings together oil consumers and producers.

Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries ministers will attend the Rome meeting, but so far are not expected to use the occasion to hold a formal OPEC meeting to review output.