Obama to offer plan to tame oil market speculation

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) greets mayors during the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami, Florida, June 21, 2008.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Advisers to presidential candidate Barack Obama on Sunday will offer ideas for reining in speculation in the oil markets that has contributed to the higher fuel costs U.S. consumers are seeing at the gasoline pump.

The Obama campaign said in a statement that the presumptive Democratic nominee wants to "crack down on excessive energy speculation."

The campaign is to discuss Obama's ideas in a 1 p.m. EDT conference call with reporters that will be led by New Jersey Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, Obama's economic policy director Jason Furman and his energy advisor Elgie Holstein.

Asked last week about the role of speculation in the run-up of prices of commodities such as oil, Obama, an Illinois senator, said he was concerned about players in the market who "artificially jack up the price of oil in order to secure short term profits."

He said the commodities markets serve a useful purpose for people who want to lock in prices and hedge against risk.

However, he added, "I think that we've got to have a much better job of monitoring irregularities in these markets."

(Reporting by Caren Bohan, editing by Jackie Frank)