Saudi wants heads of state at oil talks: diplomats

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, the top world oil exporter, wants heads of state to attend a June 22 meeting it is hosting of producers and consumers to discuss record oil prices, diplomats said on Wednesday.

It was unclear, however, if any leaders would attend the talks in Jeddah, the diplomats said. U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday they would attend.

"We will be there, Mr Tanaka will go," IEA official Didier Houssin told Reuters, referring to Nobuo Tanaka, the agency's executive director.

Oil hit a record $139.12 a barrel on Friday and was trading above $134 on Wednesday, a level OPEC has said is not justified by supply and demand. Consumers are worried about the impact of high prices on economic growth.

Oil producers and consumers met less than two months ago in Rome, but failed to produce any concrete measures to tame oil prices. They did not even manage to agree that prices, which were then around $20 below current levels, were too high.

The Paris-based IEA is an adviser to 27 industrialized countries on energy policy and was set up during the 1970s oil crisis to give rich consuming nations a voice.

"We learnt about the meeting very recently and we need to see what the Saudis have in mind," Houssin added.

The Secretary General of OPEC Abdullah al-Badri on Tuesday told Reuters that Saudi Arabia, OPEC's most influential member, would host the meeting on June 22 in Jeddah.

OPEC member Kuwait on Wednesday reiterated its support for the meeting and fellow member Nigeria welcomed the Saudi initiative.

A source close to the meeting said many energy ministers, including Bodman, would attend and Badri said investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley had also been invited.

The two banks are among the firms that have raised their oil-price forecasts recently, which other traders and analysts said has helped to fuel gains in the oil price.

Banks and oil companies said on Wednesday they had yet to be asked.

"We have not received an invitation," a Goldman Sachs spokesman said. A spokesman for BP Plc (BP.L) also said the company had yet to be invited.

(Reporting by Andrew Hammond and Muriel Boselli, additional reporting by Jane Merriman, writing by Alex Lawler, editing by Barbara Lewis)