Finance ministers from the world’s biggest economies disagreed about the impact of speculation on oil prices at the weekend, with Hank Paulson, US treasury secretary, warning that it would be a mistake to reach for “some short-term fix”.

Under pressure from some group of eight finance ministers, including Italy’s Giulio Tremonti, the G8 agreed to commission a study from the International Monetary Fund to look into the impact that speculation might be having on the price of already tight supplies of oil.