The 19th World Petroleum Congress opened in Madrid on Sunday night, with key players in the sector meeting to discuss the future of the industry amid soaring oil prices and a widening gulf between consumer nations and producers.
After breaking through the symbolic figure of 140 dollars a barrel in London and New York on Thursday, oil continued to set new records: the price climbing to 142.97 dollars in London and 142.99 in New York on Friday.
Held every three years, the World Petroleum Congress brings together thousands of delegates from around the world. Among those participating are OPEC''s President Chakib Khelil, its Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Nobuo Tanaka, the European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs and several ministers of state.
They are to be joined by the bosses of major international oil groups including Total''s Christophe de Margerie, Shell''s Jeroen van der Veer, Rex Tillerson of the US giant ExxonMobil, and Fu Chengyu of China''s CNOOC. The key participants met on Sunday night for a private dinner before the start of the summit proper on Monday morning.
Dominating the agenda during the four-day congress will be the hot topics of safeguarding world oil supplies, balancing supply and demand, the fragile state of reserves and the sudden jump in the price of refined products. However, the controversial role played by speculators will not be on the agenda.
This was at the heart of discussions at a meeting of consumers and producers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last weekend. Record prices are forecast by OPEC''s president to touch 150-170 dollars a barrel in the coming months. Most experts agreed afterwards that the only concrete result was Saudi Arabia''s announcement that it would increase daily production by more than 200,000 barrels to 9.7 million. Most OPEC members remain firmly against any increase in their production and blame speculators and the fall in the dollar for the remarkable rise in prices, which have doubled in the last 12 months.