Energy ministers from five major oil consuming countries, including China, Japan and the United States, are poised to voice their sense of crisis over skyrocketing fuel prices when they meet in the northeastern Japanese city of Aomori on Saturday.
The five countries, the three plus India and South Korea, will mainly discuss how to rein in crude oil prices, which have more than doubled since the start of 2007 and briefly topped $139 a barrel the previous day in New York, ahead of Sunday's Group of Eight energy ministers meeting in the same city, Japanese officials said.
The five countries together consume about half of the world's energy demand. The officials said the countries are expected to call on oil producers to provide the turbulent oil market assurances that demand will not surpass supply in the future.
As to what consumers can do to address the impact of soaring oil prices, the five countries are likely to underscore the importance of adopting more alternative energy sources and energy-saving measures, the officials said.
The countries are also expected to agree on the need to enhance emergency measures, the officials said.
As part of initiatives to meet this goal, China and India's intentions to work more closely with the International Energy Agency are likely to be expressed in a statement, due out later in the day after the end of the one-day meeting.
The IEA requires its 27 member countries to have oil stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports and release them in the event of a major oil supply disruption.
China and India are not part of the IEA, founded by industrialized countries in 1974 in the wake of the first oil crisis.
But Japan, South Korea and the United States, as well as other countries, see that the two fast-growing economies' active involvement in steps to respond to oil supply disruptions is crucial.
China and India together account for nearly half of the entire expansion in world energy demand between 2005 and 2030, and China will overtake the United States to become the world's largest consumer of energy by around 2010, according to the Paris-based agency.
The first energy meeting of the five major oil-consuming countries was hosted by China in 2006. As the countries found that this sort of framework was useful to exchange the latest views on energy issues, Japan decided to organize their second meeting prior to the energy meeting Sunday of G-8 industrialized countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
China, India and South Korea are invited to take part in the G-8 energy meeting, also to be held for the first time since 2006.
Discussions at the Aomori meeting will be reflected in the summit of the G-8 major powers to be held in Japan's Hokkaido on July 7-9, whose major agenda items will include global warming, oil prices and other energy issues.
