RIYADH, Sept 20: Thirty-four energy ministers, and officials from another 31 countries, including the world’s largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, along with 13 international organizations are currently present in Osaka, Japan to attend the Sept 21-23 International Energy Forum, reports reaching Dhahran, the virtual global energy capital, indicate.

US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, EU Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio and Norwegian Oil Minister Einar Steenaes, are reported to be present in Osaka to take part in the premier energy moot.

These energy ministers have gathered for three days of talks aimed at fostering closer ties and understanding between the oil producers and the consumers. Energy analysts regard this understanding between the producers and consumers as essential to sustained global economic growth.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi said after the Opec meeting that oil prices, close to $30 a barrel for US crude, were fair for both petroleum producing and importing countries.

“Prices are okay for producers and consumers,” he told reporters during the meeting that decided to keep the output limits intact.

“This is not a decision we took lightly. We had to take account of many uncertainties including Iraq,” Naimi said.

In the wake of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) decision to leave the oil output target level unchanged at 21.7 million bpd despite calls from certain Western quarters including the International Energy Agency (IEA) to increase the output, this meeting of the forum has attained additional significance.

Major consuming countries are worried that political uncertainties in the region as the US forges ahead to strike Baghdad militarily and a combination of low oil stocks, high crude prices and rising Northern hemisphere winter demand could result in turbulence in the oil markets.

In its latest oil report, the IEA forecast a 1.6 million bpd demand increase from the third to fourth quarter 2002 and warned that world stock inventories were “uncomfortably low.”

Host country Japan is particularly vulnerable to any disruption in oil supplies that might stem from a war involving Iraq. Unlike the US and Europe, which in an emergency can count on oil reserves that are geographically closer, Japan is almost totally dependent on supplies from the Middle East, mainly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Japanese government is also worried about soaring energy consumption from neighbouring China. Japan expects over the next 20 years to see a doubling in Asian oil demand, much of it from China.

Tokyo is urging China and other nations to adopt a programme of maintaining oil stockpiles common in industrialized nations to ensure a stable supply.