Saudi Arabia today called for a summit of oil producing countries and consumers to discuss how to prevent oil prices from soaring further, following last week's surge to a record high of $139 a barrel.

The country's Information and Culture Minister, Iyad Madani, said that the kingdom would work with OPEC to "guarantee the availability of oil supplies now and in the future".

In a statement following the weekly meeting of the Saudi Cabinet, Mr Madani said the current price of oil was unjustified and pledged action to prevent further "unwarranted and unnatural" price hikes.

The price of a barrel jumped by over $10 on Friday - the largest ever one day increase - as the dollar weakened further and tensions escalated between Israel and Iran, the world's fourth-largest exporter.

Market fundamentals did not justify the rise in oil prices, said the cabinet statement, adding that it had asked Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi to call a meeting to discuss the issue.

“The cabinet assigned the petroleum minister... to call a meeting soon to bring together representatives of oil producing and consuming nations and companies operating in oil production, exports and sales to look into the rise in prices and its reasons and how to deal with it objectively,” it said.

“The kingdom as a main producer realised that the oil market has sufficient supply of petroleum and an increasing commercial inventory,” it added.

But Iran, a fellow OPEC member, said earlier that it did not see the need for a special summit before the organisation's next scheduled meeting in September. The record prices had nothing to do with a supply shortage, it added.

Saudi Arabia is the only OPEC member with spare capacity to boost output quickly and significantly. Consuming governments have put pressure on the organisation, members of which supply more than a third of the world’s oil, to boost output to ease the effect of high prices on their economies.

But OPEC blames factors beyond its control, including speculation and political tension, for the price rises. Friday's spike came as fears of a new Middle East conflict were fanned by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, who warned the country would attack Iran to prevent it developing a nuclear weapon. The remarks drew a belligerent response from Tehran, which insists its nuclear programme is peaceful.

Saudi Arabia has already boosted output by 300,000 barrels per day to pump 9.45 million barrels daily in June, and Mr al-Naimi said last month the kingdom was meeting all the demand for its crude.

The last meeting of oil producer and consumer nations was held in Rome in April.

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