In These New Times

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has slammed so-called oil speculators for forcing the price of a barrel of oil up to almost 140 dollars.

Amongst other factors, he blamed the “unjust increase in oil prices” as an act of speculators seeking to undermine the market.

On Sunday, the king opened a summit over the soaring price of crude, which has created divisions in OPEC as to whether production should be increased.

The king announced that Saudi production had been put up to 9.7 million barrels a day, the highest figure since 1981.

He said his country would give 1.5 billion dollars to efforts to ease energy shortages in poorer countries and told the 36 nation summit his country was very concerned about consumers everywhere.

Some other countries also seem to be preparing to increase production, including Kuwait.

Kuwaiti Oil Minister Mohammed al-Olaim said that OPEC members would not hesitate to increase production if the market needed it.