King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, flanked by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at an energy summit in Jeddah, June 22, 2008.

The global energy summit meeting of leading consumer and producer countries hosted by Saudi Arabia, ended on Sunday, with the Saudis promising a small increase in production but no practical steps were agreed on measures to ease the crisis over soaring oil prices.

The Saudis said that they would increase of 200,000 barrels a day and and expand output capacity if needed in coming years.

On Monday, oil is trading at $136.32 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 96 cents from $135.46 in New York on Friday.

Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest oil exporter with production up to 9.7m barrels per day (b/d) - the highest level for more than two and a half decades. However, a supply crunch following inadequate investment in the past decade coupled with surging demand in emerging economies and peaking production in Russia, the North Sea and Mexico, is seen as the driver of high prices rather than market speculation.

The kingdom said on Sunday that it expects to achieve 12.5m b/d next year and could add an additional 2.5m barrels – if needed – after that with a massive investment programme.

Overall demand for oil by China, India and other rapidly emerging economies, including many in the Middle East, where demand growth is very strong because of low prices, is still expected to grow relentlessly in coming years, putting enormous pressure on producers to keep pace.

Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, said in a speech:“This will enable us to maintain our spare capacity in the interest of global market stability – which is in everyone’s interest.”

One problem with the additional Saudi oil production is that it is heavy, sulfurous oil which it not as easy for refiners to convert to gasoline or petrol.

Meanwhile, insurgents in the southern Niger Delta of Nigeria, announced a unilateral cease-fire on Sunday after an appeal by community elders.

The insurgents who are called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, declared the cease-fire days after an attack last week, which forced Royal Dutch Shell to halt output from Bonga, its main Nigerian offshore oil field.

They said that the cease-fire would take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

“We are respecting an appeal by the Niger Delta elders to give peace and dialogue another chance,”a statement said.

The campaign of sabotage against oil facilities, has cut Nigeria's output to less than 1.5m barrels a day, its lowest level in 25 years, rather than the 2.5m b/d it has the capacity to produce.

The Saudi summit was held in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and King Abdullah said that the “selfish interests” of speculators was a key reason for surging prices and urged the ministers to “rule out biased rumours” and to “reach the real causes for the increase in price.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pointed to fundamental economics and “oil demand rising faster than supply.” The US Energy Secretary, Samuel Bodman, said in remarks to reporters:“There is no evidence we can find that speculators are driving futures prices.”

Brown called for a “global new deal” that would allow a “greater commonality of interest” between consumers and producers, including greater freedom to invest in one another’s markets.

Aside from the output hike that was promised in Jeddah, oil consumers and producers also agreed that they needed to invest more in downstream and upstream oil output.

The last new oil refinery to open in the US was in 1976. Environmental issues and the multi-billion dollar budgets required, has stalled plans for new refineries in the interval.

The summit drew hundreds of participants to Jeddah but Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, said: “There are no overnight solutions.”