The four-day World Petroleum Congress kicks off in Madrid today after an official opening ceremony yesterday.

More than 3,000 delegates will explore ways to calm global markets at a time of rapidly rising crude prices just ten days after emergency talks in Saudi Arabia failed to agree solutions though the host nation did announce that it will increase daily production by more than 200,000 barrels to 9.7 million.

However, most OPEC members are stubbornly refusing to increase production, blaming lack of refining capacity, speculators and the falling value of the dollar for the fact that crude prices have doubled over the last twelve months.

Among those taking part in this week's conference are political representatives from Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela, India, France and Holland, the presidents of OPEC and the International Energy Agency as well as bosses of the world's major international oil groups, including ExxonMobil (USA), CNOOC (China), BP, Shell (Holland), Rosneft (Russia) and Total (France).