Jeddah Summit: Saudi Arabia promises to increase oil output; India urges "price band mechanism"

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Saudi Arabia, which has also promised to give $1 billion to an OPEC fund for developing countries and $500 million in soft loans for poor countries to finance energy and development projects, said there was enough oil for everybody.

"We are very concerned for consumers in all countries," said Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in the inaugural address.

"We have increased production in the past few months from 9 million barrels a day to 9.7 million barrels," he said, adding, "And, we declare our readiness to meet any additional needs."

The oil output hike comes after 2 and 1/2 decades of persuasion made by oil hungry nations to the world's top oil exporter.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia increased output by 300,000 bpd last month after US President George W. Bush visited the oil-rich kingdom.

However, the increase is not enough, said some nations, to help moderate the global crude oil prices, which are hovering near $135 per barrel.

While Italy's economy minister Giulio Tremonti said on Sunday he feared the impact of an increase in Saudi oil output on scorching oil prices could be offset by production outages in Nigeria, former US President Bill Clinton's energy secretary Bill Richardson said the increase is "going to help a little bit, maybe reduce prices just a little."

However, India's Finance Minister, who is attending the Jeddah Summit, said the increase is sufficient to ease the oil prices.

Chidambaram, who has urged the OPEC members to regulate futures trading on oil and adopt "price band mechanism," said, "every oil-producing country has moral obligation to bring prices down."

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