Representatives from the Group of 20 countries, the 20 most developed economies in the world, are preparing to meet in Xianghe near Beijing on Saturday and Sunday.

The price of oil has fallen about 10 percent since it hit 70.85 dollars per barrel at the end of August, but fears remain in rich countries about the possible economic impact of the surge in energy costs this year.

For Tim Adams, the US under secretary of the treasury for international affairs, the G20 is a valuable forum to address concerns about imbalances between supply and demand in the market.

"You have both producers and consumers sitting around the same table," he said last week before heading off on a tour of Asia.

The G20 brings together the biggest consuming nations, with the United States at the top of the pack, and some of the world's biggest producers: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, and Indonesia.

Together, the G20 countries account for 90 percent of global wealth.

The US has made it clear in advance that energy should be the main theme of the talks, replacing the official topic of "Global Cooperation: Promoting Balanced and Orderly World Economic Development".

The US is also likely to seize the opportunity to press China on further exchange rate reform. US Treasury Secretary John Snow, visiting China this week, has made repeated overtures to the Chinese authorities to relax their control of the yuan and allow it to appreciate against the US dollar.

The latest talks to be dominated by energy concerns come a month after a meeting in Washinton of the G7 countries -- the United States, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Britain -- which had a similar agenda.

Discussions there concluded with a call for oil producers and oil companies to invest their enormous profits in new production capacity to prepare for a future that -- all experts agree -- is likely to see greater demand for oil than ever.

The rapid growth of the Chinese economy over the last two years has been one of the principal reasons for tensions in the oil market amid fears that demand from the Communist republic would outpace the growth in supply.

According to the editor of French-language industry oil magazine Le Petrole et le Gaz arabes, Francis Perrin, the main issue is investment in future production capacity.

"It's one of the major questions, perhaps the major question of the current period after 2004," he said. "If they are not going to tackle this, I don't see what they they are going to talk about in terms of energy."

The International Energy Agency has estimated that investment totalling 16,000 billion dollars (13,000 billion euros) is needed in the next 25 years to maintain current capacity and keep pace with the world's future appetite.

Both producers and consumers have attempted to shift the responsibility for the fears about shortages and have blamed each other for bottlenecks in different parts of the system.

Producers, notably the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, blame consuming nations for failing to invest in sufficient refinery capacity, a problem highlighted by the damage wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the United States that caused shortages.

In response, consuming countries reproach exporters for deliberately limiting investment in their domestic oil industries by imposing ownership restrictions.

Saudi Arabia, Russia and Mexico tightly control investment in their oil industries, limiting the participation of foreign companies.

Officials at the talks are unlikely to risk offending China, despite worries about Beijing's attempts to acquire foreign energy groups, said Perrin.

"On the contrary, there will be an overriding willingness from Western countries, for strategic and geopolitical reasons, to calm the game," he said.

He concluded: "The idea is to engage China in talks to see how the country's ineluctable rise to power can be achieved in the most orderly fashion possible."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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