Saudis balk at Bush's oil advice

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA — President Bush and Saudi leaders tangled Tuesday over the price of oil, with the president reminding this wealthy desert kingdom that U.S. purchases could fall if the American economy slips and with a Saudi official refusing to commit his country to greater production to reduce costs at the pump.

Bush said the price of oil, driven up by growing demand in the United States but an even greater increase in China and India, had become "painful for our consumers." He suggested that oil-producing nations open their spigots for their own good.

Producers should "realize that high energy prices affect the economies of consuming nations," he said. If those economies weaken, he said, they "will eventually be buying fewer barrels of oil."

Energy demand has "outstripped new supply," Bush told reporters. "That's why there's high price."

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Ibrahim Naimi said his country was sympathetic to such economic worries, but he refused to commit to increasing production.

"The concern for the U.S. economy is valid," he said. "But what affects the U.S. economy is more than the price of oil." Still, he added, "we don't want to see the U.S. economy go into recession in the future."

The oil minister held out the possibility that his country might at some point increase its output of oil, a step that might lower consumer prices.

"We have no constraints on using it now or in the future," Naimi said of Saudi Arabia's unused production capacity.

When asked whether U.S. consumers would again see gasoline priced at $1 to $1.50 a gallon, he cracked: "If I knew that, I'd be in Las Vegas rather than here."

The U.S.-Saudi relationship is based foremost on oil, although the United States relies more heavily on oil from Canada and Mexico than from Saudi Arabia. But differences between the two governments, however gingerly expressed, go beyond oil matters.

Most recently, the Bush administration has tried to win the release of a detained Saudi blogger, Fouad Farhan, who has run afoul of the government because of his Internet postings that call for more freedoms. At a news conference Tuesday, Prince Saud al Faisal, the foreign minister, largely turned aside a question about that case and Saudi respect for human rights.

He also bristled and said he was not certain "what kind of outreach we can have for Israel" when he was asked whether Saudi Arabia would support the new efforts at Israeli- Palestinian rapprochement, as sought by Bush during his visit.