PM urges oil supplies boost

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Mr Brown made the call as he and Chancellor Alistair Darling travelled to North East Scotland for a meeting with Britain's oil bosses.

The talks came a day after the Prime Minister was besieged by hundreds of lorry drivers demanding he help save the haulage industry by reducing the duty on diesel. The Government is also under mounting pressure to ditch controversial proposals to increase road tax on gas guzzling cars.

Mr Brown travelled to Banchory for the board meeting of industry body UK Oil and Gas. He told the meeting: "This is not just a national problem. It is a global problem of supply and demand, not just in the short term but the medium term and the long term.

"Therefore what your ideas and insights are, to contribute to getting the right balance between supply and demand, is going to be very useful to us. That's why Alistair and I look forward to this meeting."

In comments at the beginning of the meeting, Mr Brown insisted the world had to "diversify" its energy sources in future.

Using nuclear power and improving energy efficiency - through measures such as better house insulation - could help ease the pressure, he added.

"Of course in the current situation we are trying to do things that will help those families who are hardest hit," Mr Brown said.

Separately, plans for increased North Sea oil production were outlined by the Government as ministers gave the green light for two new field developments. Business Secretary John Hutton also announced changes to the system for licensing oil fields in the North Sea and said there had been a record amount of interest in the latest licensing rounds.

The new developments, West Don and Don South West, are due to start production in the first half of next year and are estimated to produce up to 50,000 barrels of oil a day at their peak, with total output of 50 million barrels. Mr Hutton also outlined plans for new oil and gas fields to be carved out of unprofitable parts of around 30 existing fields, which could see additional daily production of 20,000 barrels of oil.