US Energy Secretary Bodman To Meet Saudi Oil Min Naimi Saturday

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Saturday will meet with Saudi Arabia oil minister Ali Naimi, the U.S. Department of Energy said Friday.

Bodman, who began a several-country tour across the Middle East earlier this week, will continue to urge the world’s top crude supplier to invest in long- term petroleum production and will express concern about short-term supply shortages, Energy Department officials have said.


President George W. Bush told Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah earlier this week on a separate trip through the region that more oil “would be helpful.”

Thursday in Amman, Jordan, the Energy Secretary said there was a current supply shortage and high oil prices were contributing to a greater risk of recession, a view that analysts say that he’s likely to emphasize with Naimi.

Although concerned about oil supply and prices, Bodman stopped short of calling on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, to increase output when the group meets Feb. 1 in Vienna.

Dow Jones