If the democracy and support for humans right are the main engine of US diplomacy, "then you have to wonder why we have not taken a tougher line with Russia, why we have not taken a tougher line with Kazakhstan, why we have not taken a tougher line with Libya?" he asked.

Yet US officials "use it when we talk about Venezuela, and we use it when we talk about the Middle East," said Verrastro, an expert in energy policy.

"Increasingly it is looking like a case by case application of what is more important," he said. "It is depending on what the perceived needs of the day are."

Washington announced on May 15 it was normalizing relations with Libya, which has important crude oil reserves, despite the lack of political reforms visible in a country led since 1969 by the same man, Moamer Kadhafi.

On the same day US officials imposed sanctions on Venezuela, a country that supplies 15 percent of US oil imports. The stated reason: populist President Hugo Chavez's lack of cooperation in the US-led "war on terror".

Washington also charged Chavez's government with restricting the freedom of the press and harassing his political opponents.

One day later US officials suspended free trade negotiations with Ecuador, another important oil supplier, after Quito cancelled its contract with US-based Occidental Petroleum and took over their assets.

On May 4 US Vice President Dick Cheney took a swipe at Russia over democratic reform, accusing Moscow of "improperly restricting" human rights and using oil and gas supplies as a weapon.

"No legitimate cause is served when oil and gas become tools of manipulation or blackmail," Cheney said, referring to the cut-off of gas supplies to Ukraine last January which also affected parts of Europe.

Yet just hours later Cheney was praising the authoritarian government of Kazakhstan for its "economic development and political development".

Since 1993, the US has invested about 12 billion dollars (9.42 billion euros) in Kazahkstan, which has oil reserves of 24 billion barrels, making the US the biggest single investor in the country.

The Bush administration claims it is pursuing a coherent energy policy, but recognizes that oil producing countries are politically profiting from the high price of crude, a US State Department energy expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"You have the bulk of the world hydrocarbons resources owned by state owned oil companies. And they are feeling very powerful now, as we saw in Ecuador and Russia and Venezuela," the official said.

However, Washington has not given up defending the democracy. "We have principles," the official said, pointing to Libya, which had to meet strict guidelines to be withdrawn from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

"The evidence would suggest that America has put ... our values above the mercantilist energy issues," the official said.

Richard Haass, president of Council on Foreign Relations, another Washington-based think tank, disagreed.

"Today's situation may lack drama in the sense that there has been no successful terrorist attack on some tanker or refinery," Haas wrote in the most recent issue of Newsweek magazine.

"But current energy policy (or the lack of one) empowers some of the most repressive and reckless regimes in the world, further impoverishes hundreds of millions of the world's poor and contributes to global climate change."

The spill occurred about 1.5 miles off the coast of Oahu when a hose line pumping oil from the tanker to a floating buoy disconnected, Hokama said.

"The only thing we know right now is that one of the couplings in the hose separated, which is what it's supposed to do whenever there's a strain on the hose," he said.

Crews from the Clean Islands Council and the Marine Spill Response Corporation helped with cleanup.

The light crude oil may have dissipated quickly because of strong sunshine and choppy waters, Hokama said.

Any potential fines would be assessed based on the results of an investigation, he said.

Breton, who met Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi and Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf during a short visit to Riyadh, said the talks also dealt with widening the margin between supply and demand.

Breton said that French oil giant Total would on Sunday sign a major oil deal with Saudi Arabia "to increase (crude) production, extraction and refining."

"Concerning investment in refineries, tomorrow ... there (will be) a very concrete measure, which is the signing of the agreement with Total that will have a very significant investment," he said.

He declined to give details, but Total has been negotiating the construction of an oil refinery with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) at an estimated cost of five billion dollars in Jubail in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province.

Breton, who will report to the G7 industrialized nations on his talks with producers, said there was "an estimated 30 dollars of speculation in the price of a barrel of oil today" and ways should be found to "burst this speculative bubble."

There should be "transparency and reliability" in the facts about available reserves and stocks, he said.

"When such information is relayed to the markets, we have seen that prices go down," Breton said.

The French minister praised Saudi Arabia's "ambitious" program to expand its production capacity, which Saudi officials say will raise capacity from the current 11.3 million bpd to 12.5 million bpd by 2009, but said other OPEC members should also formulate "roadmaps" about their plans for the next three to four years.

"The world needs to know ... that the resources will be there or, if they are not there, consumer countries would take alternative measures, which is what France is doing," he said.

Breton, whose talks came ahead of a June 1 OPEC ministerial meeting, said he had also discussed with Saudi officials "the creation of a larger buffer between supply and demand."

"The current buffer is one to 1.5 million bpd. It's not enough. Strategic reserves must therefore be increased -- which has been done on the European and American side. Extraction and refining capacities must (also) be increased," he said.

Because the margin between supply and demand is too small, any external factor, be it fear of terrorism or geopolitical risks, creates tensions on the oil market and drives prices up, Breton said.

Saudi Arabia and France both want to see "stability on the oil market in a manner serving the growth of the world economy, particularly developing economies," Nuaimi was quoted as saying by the official SPA news agency.

An official Saudi source said the kingdom believes that "supply and demand are matching" when it comes to crude oil, and the rise in oil prices, which are currently hovering around 68 dollars per barrel, has more to do with "geopolitics at the regional and global level" than market fundamentals.

"There is a problem on the products side, due to the limited refining capacity to match the extra oil, which is heavy. So there is a mismatch there," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity.

The source said there was no reason why Riyadh should pump more than the current 9.5 million bpd.

"There is no demand for it (the extra heavy oil Saudi Arabia can put on the market)," the source added.