Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy made an unprecedented intervention in the global oil market yesterday, using a meeting of the Group of Eight leading economic nations to press for a crackdown on speculators stoking volatility in global crude prices.

In a joint statement, the leaders of Britain and France said that recent sharp movements in the price of oil risked choking a nascent global econ-omic recovery and proposed setting a price range for oil that would be compatible with fundamentals.

The statement said: “The surge in prices last year [to a record peak of $147 a barrel] gravely damaged the global economy and contributed to the downturn. The risk now is that a new period of instability could undermine confidence just as we are pushing for recovery.” The joint Franco-British remarks, which came as the price of oil extended losses over the past six days to 15 per cent, said that price volatility harmed both oil consumers and producers and claimed that governments around the world “can no longer stand idle”.

They called for greater market transparency and stability and said that the ultimate goal would be “to arrive at a common, long-term view on what price range would be consistent with fundamentals”.

There were suggestions from the Russians that the range mooted for a barrel of oil was between $70 and $80. However, Mr Brown denied that a figure had been discussed or a range discussed “in detail”.

The summit did agree to ask the International Energy Forum to assess different options “to reduce excessive volatility in oil prices”.

Oil prices have plummeted from the peak of $147 a barrel last July to $32 at the end of last year, then rose to $73 last week, fuelling concerns about the impact on global economic growth.

Such volatility led the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the American regulator, to say this week that it was considering stricter position limits to try to curb market speculation.

Abdullah al-Badri, secretary-general of Opec, the cartel of 12 countries that pumps one third of the world’s oil, said that he welcomed the remarks, which “echoed what we at Opec have been saying all along — that excessive speculation hurts both consumers and producers”.

He added: “The call for closer co-operation among the International Energy Agency, the International Energy Forum, Opec and other energy stakeholders is an encouraging sign.”

However, Mr al-Badri said that Opec believed that this should be extended to all commodities — not only oil — since volatility generated by speculation had created instability across other classes of commodities.

A spokesman for 10 Downing Street said that the comments, published in The Wall Street Journal, would form a basis for discussion of oil market regulation at the G8 this week in the Italian town of L’Aquila.

Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy offered few concrete proposals but said that closer co-ordination was needed between Opec and other international groups, such as the International Energy Agency and the International Energy Forum, to “develop a shared analysis of future demand and supply trends”.

The leaders said that measures should build on the work of the London Energy Meeting in December, where producer and consumer countries agreed on the need for more stability.

“We believe that producers and consumers are closer now than at any time in the past 30 years to recognising the huge common interest in giving clear and stable perspectives to long-term investment.”

Market experts expressed scepticism about how such a scheme would work. John Hall, an independent energy market analyst, doubted how the role of speculators in the oil market could ever be reduced unless they were eliminated altogether.

Greg Clark, Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: “While any steps that can be taken to reduce volatility would be welcome, the right response would be to take action to reduce the dependence of our economies on oil.”

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