The fluctuation of crude oil   prices is closely related to the global financial market and the  surge of oil prices should not only be ascribed to rising energy  demands of fast developing countries, a Chinese energy official said   Saturday.

     Oil has become a commodity of the largest trade volume in the world. A huge amount of oil trade is conducted in the financial  market and the oil prices are no longer up to the traditional     marginal utility, but have become a financial concept under the    influence of a lot of factors, said Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of    China's National Development and Reform Commission.

     Zhang dismissed the idea that rising demands in industrializing  countries such as China and India should be blamed for the surge of  oil prices.

     "This is an incomprehensive idea since decisive factors for oil   prices have run further beyond the concept of supply and demand,"    Zhang said in his speech at the energy ministers meeting between      

India, China, the United States, Japan and South Korea.

     Zhang noted that from 2003 to 2006, world oil consumption posed    

annual increases of 1.9 percent, 3.8 percent, 1.2 percent and 0.7    

percent respectively. "The rates were all in normal range."

     He suggested that his counterparts put the rising oil prices into  

the context of global financial market, which could be affected by a  

wide range of factors such as the change of exchange rates,          

geopolitics, political instabilities and natural disasters.

     "All these may turn to be reasons for speculation, ...and from    

this way of thinking, an answer to the current record high oil price  

could be found," Zhang said.

     He called on his counterparts to cherish the opportunity to        

discuss the obvious problem in the global oil market and refrain from

concentrating on their own interests.

     The five-party energy ministers meeting, initiated by China, was  

the second of its kind following the first one in Beijing in December

2006.

     China, Japan, South Korea, the United States and India take up 47  

percent of world oil consumption.

     The meeting was one day prior to the Group of Eight Energy        

Ministers Meeting and the G8 plus China, South Korea and India energy

ministers meeting.