Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, is to meet the Saudi Oil Minister this week to discuss global concerns over the soaring price of oil, which hit nearly $140 a barrel on Friday.

News of Mr Wicks’s meeting with Ali al-Naimi emerged as Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom, one of Western Europe’s key gas suppliers, forecast that crude oil prices could almost double to $250 per barrel as soon as next year and gave warning that Europe faced an energy future of increasing dependence on imports from overseas, especially Russia.

Mr Miller also forecast that the price of wholesale gas would treble. Most analysts think that oil will be between $100 and $200 a barrel next year.

Mr Wicks will meet Mr al-Naimi for talks in Riyadh on Saturday. He is expected to press for Saudi cooperation to ensure greater transparency in the global oil market, including more up-to-date data on oil production, trade and stocks in an effort to limit the opportunity for speculation by reducing oil price volatility. Mr Wicks is also expected to welcome Saudi Arabia’s recent push for formal dialogue between oil producer and consumer countries, in particular to discuss how to encourage greater investment in production. He is likely to welcome Saudi Arabia’s decision to boost output to 9.45 million barrels per day, representing 11 per cent of global production, up from 9.2 million last month, but he is also likely to seek assurances that Mr al-Naimi will encourage other Opec producers to follow suit.

Oil prices were underpinned by figures from the International Energy Agency yesterday, which showed that international demand would continue to grow briskly this year, especially in China. Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose $2.26 to $136.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange before losing ground to $131.31 last night.

At a business conference in Deau-ville, the French resort, Mr Miller said that the cause of rising energy prices was not speculation but competition for resources. He said: “There is some influence from speculators, but not a determining one. We think the oil price will reach $250 per barrel in 2009. Competition for resources is growing.”

Mr Miller said that Gazprom would invest $30 billion a year to develop gas transport links and he berated European governments for trying to move away from Gazprom and seek supplies in Central Asia. “Europe’s desire to diversify is based on the concept that anything is better than relying on Russia, but to diversify at any price gives unexpected results,” he said.

Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom’s deputy chief executive and head of Gazexport, also criticised the European Union’s efforts to link Gazprom’s long-term sales contracts to spot market prices, suggesting that it would not lead to more competition. He said: “It would be naive to think that in ten years there will be a buyer’s market on the Continent. The countries that will have gas resources and that will be able to satisfy demand are Russia, Qatar and Iran. We should not invent gas suppliers that have no gas supplies.”

Mr Wicks is to meet Mr al-Naimi to help to lay the groundwork for a meeting of producers and consumers on June 22 in Jeddah.

Slowdown

World oil consumption is set to expand this year at its slowest rate in six years, the International Energy Agency said. Demand is forecast to rise by 800,000 barrels per day, 230,000 barrels less than the agency’s previous forecast

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