Ahead of meeting of EU finance ministers, Spanish Finance Minister Pedro Solbes said: "We all acknowledge the need to increase production and to maintain contact with producer countries".

EU ministers are to hold a lunchtime discussion on the impact of high oil prices on the eurozone economy.

The comments from EU ministers come as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries gathers in Beirut for a meeting on Thursday about increasing the cartel's production with an aim to bring down prices.

Eurozone finance ministers meeting late Tuesday voiced concern about soaring oil prices, which hit a new all-time high earlier in the day in New York, and called on Opec to calm the market.

Warning of the impact of high oil prices on European economies, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia urged Opec members late Tuesday to take coordinated action to lower oil prices.

Such action would be "welcome and beneficial for the euro area and EU economies", Almunia said speaking after the Eurogroup meeting.

Almunia confirmed that surging oil prices were forecast to shave off 0.2 percent of the European Commission's eurozone growth forecast of 1.7 percent for 2004 and to add 0.2 percent to inflation.

Concerns about high oil prices led Britain's chief finance minister Gordon Brown to try to speak to the oil ministers of every Opec nation in an attempt to persuade the cartel to boost oil production, according to the Times.

Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been "hitting the phones" ahead of the Opec meeting in Beirut Thursday, the Times said in its Wednesday edition, without citing sources.

Irish finance minister Charlie McCreevy said here Wednesday the economic fallout of surging oil prices depended on how long they stayed high.