Letter to Heads of Government of Major Oil-Producing Nations Informing Them of Plans for a Meeting on International Energy Problems

TODAY I have invited governments of the major oil consuming countries to send representatives to a meeting in Washington on February eleventh. The purpose of this meeting will be to seek a consensus among the participants, looking toward a meeting of consumers and producers, which would establish new mutually beneficial arrangements for international energy and related economic matters.

Recent developments have emphasized the critical importance of energy to the prosperity and stability of the international economy. Severe disruptions of economic activity and of the world monetary system, whether caused by insufficiency of energy supplies or abrupt price movements could prove disastrous for consumers and producers alike.

Oil importing nations are vitally concerned with mechanisms which will assure adequate supplies at reasonable prices. Oil producing states, in turn, are concerned with arrangements that will assure fair payment for and rational use of their non-renewable resources.

Accordingly, as suggested by Secretary of State Kissinger in his speech in London in December, the United States believes it is necessary to deal with these matters urgently.

The United States is undertaking this initiative as a constructive and positive step, consistent with the publicly stated views of a number of oil producing nations which have called for a consultative relationship between producers and consumers. It is my hope that the results of the forthcoming meeting will lead to an early joint conference of consumer and producer nations.

RICHARD NIXON