Vice President Dick Cheney and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah shared some common views about factors in the oil market that have pushed prices to record highs, a senior U.S. official said on Saturday.Cheney and Abdullah held about 4-1/2 hours of private, one-to-one meetings on Friday at the king's farm on the outskirts of Riyadh, where the vice president also met the Saudi oil minister. "There was I think a lot of commonality in their assessment about the structural problems confronted by the global energy market now and some discussion of probably the way forward, how we work together to try and stabilize the market," the U.S. official told reporters traveling with Cheney.
The talks covered "what could be done shorter-term, but probably more about what's necessary to do over the medium to longer term," he said.
The official would not give details of the discussions between Cheney and the Saudi king, a U.S. ally and leader of the world's top oil exporter, calling them confidential and private conversations.
Cheney's trip follows a visit to Saudi Arabia by President George W. Bush, who in January called for OPEC to increase production, but the crude oil exporters' group decided to hold production steady. Saudi Arabia is the only OPEC member that can easily add significant amounts of extra oil to the market. Record-high oil prices have dealt a blow to the U.S. economy, which has also been contending with a housing market crisis.