Leaders in the world oil industry are holding their biggest meeting in three years in Madrid on Sunday, with high hopes of finding possible solutions to the soaring oil prices.

Some 4,000 delegates, including prominent executives from oil companies and policy makers, are expected to attend the 19th World Petroleum Congress (WPC), which would kick off Sunday evening with an opening dinner.

Dubbed as "the Olympics of the oil and gas industry", the congress will hold discussions from Monday to Thursday under the motto "A world in transition: delivering energy for sustainable growth".

Hopes are high that they could this time find possible solutions to record-high oil prices, which breached 140 US dollars per barrel on the international markets just before the congress, with little sign of easing in the near future.

"Madrid will be our largest event ever. Oil prices will be a focus," Pierce Riemer, WPC's director general, said before the congress.

Oil prices have risen five-fold in six years, threatening social stability and global economic growth by pushing up inflation worldwide and dampening consumption.

The congress is held exactly a week after a global summit on oil prices in Saudi Arabia's Red Sea city of Jeddah, which failed to produce any concrete measures except the host country's decision to increase production.

Instead, the summit, which brought together the world's major oil producers and consumers, was characterized by exchange of blames, with consumer countries pointing the fingers at producers for lack of supplies, while producers put the blame on market speculation and the weak US dollar.

Despite calls from consuming countries for higher output, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) remained divided.

Saudi Arabia, a leading member of OPEC and the world's top oil exporter, promised at the Jeddah summit to raise output by 200,000barrels per day, which, however, had little effect on the markets.

OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said last week that other OPEC countries were unwilling to follow the suit since they did not see any shortage in the market.

Analysts said the congress would be unlikely to iron out those differences, which will be attended by the heads of OPEC and the International Energy Agency and energy ministers from Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela, India, France and the Netherlands.

Representatives of top oil companies, including ExxonMobil of the United States, BP and Shell of Britain, Rosneft of Russia, Total of France and CNOOC of China, are also expected to be present. They will have a closer look at the industry's future amid soaring oil prices.

"Past experience demonstrates that price volatility and economic cycles alternating boom and bust periods were harmful to both the industry and the consumers," the WPC said on its official website.

"The challenge for the industry in a world in transition is to ensure continuous, affordable and reliable supply, meeting society's expectations in a sustainable, transparent, ethical and environmentally sound manner," it said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2008)