Big energy consumers align with Opec on intervention. Supply and demand stabilization. Price stabilization.

By Carola Hoyos in Cancún, Mexico

Many of the world's biggest oil-consuming nations have come to agree with the Opec producers' cartel that global prices should be determined by state intervention as well as market activity to reduce volatility, it has emerged at a meeting of energy ministers in Mexico.

The change in attitude marks a significant shift in political relations between Opec, other producers and the large oil-consuming countries.

Opec's efforts to control the market once made it the enemy of the US and many European nations.

Noé van Hulst, secretary-general of the International Energy Forum, told the Financial Times the dramatic market volatility of 2008, when oil prices rose to a record $147 a barrel and collapsed to $30 a barrel within six months, had for the first time fostered agreement, in the energy security dialogue, that countries needed to do everything possible to stabilise prices, including market intervention.

"I think there is much broader acknowledgement now that we need to do everything we can to avoid that kind of excessive volatility," he said.

Talking about what kind of oil price was needed to foster investment should be part of the energy security dialogue, he said. "I think that what is no longer taboo in the dialogue is talking about everything, including prices, which previously was a bit of an issue that most countries would like to avoid."

Opec's members try to stabilise prices by agreeing to lower their output when prices are perilously low and increasing it when they are so high they threaten economic growth and shifts to renewable energy.

In fact, the cartel's decision in late 2008 to slash its production was one of the main reasons oil prices rose from a low of about $30 a barrel back to $70-$80 a barrel,at which they trade today.

In the past Opec has come under heavy criticism, especially from the US and European capitals, when it has cut production to boost prices.

But such negative reactions have been absent for much of the past year.

Lord Hunt, the UK minister for energy and the environment, acknowledged the need sometimes to intervene in the market for oil and other energy sources.

"What happened in 2008 was a wake-up call because oil price volatility causes real problems in terms of the global economy and it does not create the right conditions in terms of long-term stable investment. And the fact is, we are going to need that investment," he said.

"Looking to the future, sometimes there has to be intervention," Lord Hunt added, referring both to the renewables and to the oil industry.

But there was one important dissenter this week. At least publicly, the US insisted at the discussions that markets needed to be left to determine the oil price.

Daniel Poneman, US deputy secretary of energy, said: "The goal of the US is a clear and long-standing one, and that is to let the laws of supply and demand set prices."

But such strict market economics did not apply to alternative energy, such as wind, at least for the time being, he admitted.