US Vice President Dick Cheney and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah shared some common views about factors in the oil market that have pushed prices to record highs, a senior US official said on Saturday. Cheney and Abdullah held about 4-1/2 hours of private, one-to-one meetings on Friday at the king's farm on the outskirts of Riyadh, where the vice president also met the Saudi oil minister.
"There was I think a lot of commonality in their assessment about the structural problems confronted by the global energy market now and some discussion of probably the way forward, how we work together to try and stabilise the market," the US official told reporters travelling with Cheney.
The talks covered "what could be done shorter-term, but probably more about what's necessary to do over the medium to longer term," he said. The official would not give details of the discussions between Cheney and the Saudi king, a US ally and leader of the world's top oil exporter, calling them confidential and private conversations.