Riyadh and Oslo get talking
News wires
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met his Norwegian
counterpart Jonas Gahr Store today, with plans to co-operate in a bid to
stabilise oil markets high on the agenda.
Saudi-Norwegian co-operation "aims to stabilise the world oil market to
serve the interests of producers, consumers, the oil industry and the world
economy in general," Thomson Financial quoted him as saying after the
meeting
Saudi Arabia is keen not to hurt consumers, he said when asked about record
high prices.
"We worry about consuming countries. They are our customers, and who
would hurt his customer? We are not going to damage the economy of anybody,"
he said.
Norway, however, sought to play down talk about discussions.
Norwegian Foreign Ministry assistant director general, Bjorn Jahnsen, told
Thomson that he had not heard about any dicussions concerning co-operation
over the oil price between the two countries.
"The aim (of the visit) was to broaden the political dialogue with Saudi
Arabia. We do not normally talk about the price of oil," said Jahnsen.
However in Oslo a spokesman for the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy said the
two oil producing nations regularly held bilateral meetings, although she
had no specific knowledge of the latest visit.
"Norway as a big producer and exporter of oil and gas, has dialogue with
Saudi Arabia... because both are big producers," she said.
Norway said last week that it would support a drop in crude prices but does
not believe there is a problem with supplies.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi called last week for calm in the face of
runaway prices, saying there was no imminent oil shortage.
28 April 2008 21:29 GMT
| last updated:
29 April 2008 08:05 GMT
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