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London prepares to host energy conference

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-19 17:17

LONDON -- Around 40 ministers from major oil producing and consuming countries were to meet in London on Friday to discuss the impact of the international financial crisis on energy investment.

Britain's Secretary for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband, seen here in October 2008, is to chair an energy conference with around 40 ministers from major oil producing and consuming countries in London on Friday. [Agencies]

The conference comes after a similar meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in June when oil prices had risen to around 140 dollars a barrel, where governments were seeking ways to stabilise global energy markets.

At the time, the conference's participants agreed to establish a working group and meet in London before the end of the year.

Since then, though, the price of a barrel of crude has dropped to less than a third of its value in the summer, falling below 40 dollars a barrel earlier this week, the lowest level since 2004.

Asked by AFP whether there would be any interest in an energy conference with oil prices falling to multi-year lows, a spokesman for the British Department of Energy and Climate Change noted that there is "always lots of volatility in the markets."

On that basis, he said, the meeting was "very important to countries that produce oil, and those that consume it."

The meeting had originally been envisaged by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to be a conference of heads of state, but those plans had to be scrapped over questions of whether or not to invite OPEC leaders such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who are shunned by London.

Britain eventually decided to hold the conference anyway, but to downgrade it to ministerial level.

The conference will be chaired by Secretary for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband. Representatives of oil companies, banks, and other non-governmental organisations such as OPEC and the International Energy Agency will also take part.