Riyadh — The Heads of State of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) yesterday rose from their two-day summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, without agreeing on measures to bring down the price of oil.

They said the body will continue to provide "adequate, timely, efficient, economic and reliable petroleum supplies to world markets."

The OPEC top leaders failed to take decisive steps that could ease oil price currently at $100 per barrel. It was predicted last week that the leaders of the 13-member organisation will attempt to re-negotiate the amount of oil members can produce every year.

Instead, the OPEC conference scheduled to hold on the 5th of next month in Abu Dhabi, is expected to review the price issue and make proposals on whether to pump more crude into the global market.

In an eight-page communiqué issued at the end of the summit yesterday, OPEC said they agree to various principles on three key issues to guide OPEC and member countries' development efforts in the years ahead.

These key issues are, stability of global energy markets, utilising energy for sustainable development and promotion of environmental cleanliness in the production and consumption of energy resources.

Under the first major item, OPEC said it will not only provide adequate, timely, efficient, economic and reliable energy but would strengthen and broaden dialogue between oil producers and consumers through the International Energy Forum (IEF) and other regional and international fora "for the benefit of all."

On sustainable development, the summit declared that "eradicating poverty should be the first and overriding global priority guiding local, regional and international efforts" of OPEC members.

It also reaffirmed the cartel's continuous commitment to provide development assistance through the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and its member countries' bilateral, regional and multilateral development assistance channels.

The OFID is a special fund through which OPEC members pull together resources to provide infrastructure and support other developmental programmes in non-OPEC poor economies.

With respect to the third key topic addressed in the communiqué, OPEC said it shares the international community's concern that climate change is a long-term concern and recognises the interrelationships between addressing such concerns on the one hand and ensuring secure and stable petroleum supplies to support global economic growth and development on the other.

OPEC members promised to spend more money to research on cleaner ways of producing oil. They also called for the development of technologies that would address climate change.

But in his speech at the closing ceremony, the Nigerian President, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, said: "We must never lose sight of the fact that we, the developing countries of the world, are marginal contributors to the historic greenhouse gas concentrations that are responsible for climate change today. We, therefore, resist any form of global mechanism which, in a discriminatory manner, focuses on the search for alternatives to oil, to the detriment of oil-producing and oil-exporting nations. We must never lose sight of the fact that oil is a strategic natural resource of our member countries and that it has served mankind well, especially in the industrialised world since the birth of modern petroleum industry a century and a half ago."

The Saudi Arabian King, Abdullah bin AbdulaAziz al Saud, had at the opening of the summit on Saturday announced the kingdom's donation of $300million (about N450billion) to research and development on climate change.