Bush told reporters before the Crown Prince met him on his ranch at Crawford, Texas, that it was very important oil prices were reasonable. The president also said he was interested in the Kingdom’s oil pumping capacity.

Afterwards a foreign affairs advisor to Abdullah said world supplies were adequate, but that Saudi was willing to provide as much crude as buyers wanted. World oil prices then dipped slightly, with US light crude settling down 82 cents to US$54.57 per barrel and London Brent crude falling 57 cents to US$54.40 per barrel.

Foreign affairs advisor Adel al-Jubeir said Saudi was currently producing slightly over 9.5m barrels of oil per day (bopd), with 1.3-1.4m bopd of spare production capacity, while White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the Kingdom had an ambitious US$50bn plan to expand production capacity to 12.5m bopd by the end of the decade.