Oil-shock veteran in price alert

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Ahmed Zaki Yamani, who was Saudi Arabia's oil minister for 25 years, says speculators, not supply, are the main problem and has called for a total overhaul of the pricing system.

"So many people are going into the futures market as if they're going into a casino," he says in statements released ahead of an exclusive interview to be aired tonight on Australian television.

Yamani headed the Saudi oil industry from 1962 to 1986 and became a household name during the oil crises of the 1970s.

But for now, prices appear calmer on the latest data that show US consumers reacting to the price surge by buying less.

July US crude fell as much as 85 cents, or 0.6%, to $133.16 a barrel in afterhours electronic trading. Brent crude oil for August settlement dropped as much as 72 cents, or 0.5%, to $133 a barrel.

In the past week, US consumers purchased an average 9.305 million barrels a day of motor fuels, 3.2% less than a year earlier, a MasterCard spending survey said. It was the eighth week of decline.

The US Energy Department said last week that petrol demand was down

1.7% from last year. It is due to report on US fuel stockpiles which analysts expect to have risen.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, has called a meeting of producers, and has indicated it will increase output by 500,000 barrels a day, adding to earlier commitments to pump an extra 300,000 barrels a day.