Oil leaders meet again after Jeddah failure

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

MADRID (AFP) — A week after failing to deflate record oil prices at a summit in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude producers and consumers will get another chance to tackle the problem at a meeting this week.

More than 3,000 delegates, including leading corporate and political figures, are to meet at the 19th World Petroleum Congress (WPC) in Madrid, which runs from Monday to Thursday after an official opening reception on Sunday.

"It's the Olympics of the oil and gas industry," director of the WPC, Pierce Riemer, told a press conference last week.

The gathering follows a surge in oil prices Friday that took both New York light sweet crude and Brent North Sea crude to record levels beyond 142 dollars a barrel.

The president of the Organization...