Chancellor tells Opec that oil market manipulation must stop

Gordon Brown will today deliver an ultimatum to the oil cartel Opec that it must end its secret manipulation of the energy market or risk long-term damage to the global economy.

With the price of crude nudging back up towards $50 a barrel last night, the chancellor will use a meeting of the G7 industrial nations in London to warn that its failure to come clean about its reserves and stocks has led to frenzied speculation in financial markets.

A senior UK source said that Mr Brown believed that unless Opec opened its books and modernised the way it operated, the global economy was doomed to a long period of high oil prices.

www.guardian.co.uk